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This collection includes Pope’s poems, translations of Ovid and Homer, An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Man, and his Moral Essays.

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The text is in the public domain.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

An attempt has been here made for the first time to include all of Pope’s poetical work within the limits of a single volume; and to print the poems in an approximately chronological order. It has been often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the exact date of a given poem; and the known order of composition has been modified so far as to permit a method of grouping the shorter poems which has been followed in other volumes of his series. Only the twelve books of the Odyssey which were Pope’s own work are here included, and all of the notes to Homer are omitted. Most of Pope’s own notes to the poems have been retained, except in the case of certain notes on The Dunciad, which are so voluminous or so trivial as to find no proper place within the necessary limits of this edition.

The allusions to Pope’s contemporaries are so numerous, particularly in the Satires, the Moral Essays, and The Dunciad, that it has seemed advisable to rid the main body of notes of such names as are of especial importance, or are frequently mentioned. The Glossary of Names will, it is hoped, prove useful in obviating the necessity of cross-reference.

The text is the result of collation, but is based upon that of the standard Croker-Elwin-Courthope edition. As to the details of capitalization and abbreviation, a uniform though necessarily somewhat arbitrary usage has been adopted. The study of facsimiles has shown that the poet himself employed capitals quite without method. They are here used only in cases of personification or of especially important substantives. As a result of his religious preservation of the decasyllabic form of pentameter, Pope employed marks of abbreviation so profusely as often to produce a page distressing to the modern eye, and not really helpful to the modern ear. Many editors have therefore abandoned these marks altogether; in this edition they have been retained wherever they did not appear likely to prove a stumbling-block to the present generation.

The usual indexes have been furnished, and a brief bibliographical note, which, while it does not pretend to exhaustiveness, may be of aid to the general reader.

Note. The photogravure frontispiece is from a portrait painted by Richardson at Twickenham, where the artist, at Pope’s request, was painting a portrait of his mother. Mr. James T. Fields bought the picture at the sale of the Marquess of Hastings’s gallery, and it is now in the possession of Mrs. Fields, by whose courtesy it is reproduced.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Alexander Pope was born in London, May 21, 1688. We cannot be sure of anything better than respectability in his ancestry, though late in life he himself claimed kinship with the Earls of Downe. His paternal grandfather is supposed to have been a clergyman of the Church of England. His mother, Edith Turner, came of a family of small gentry and landowners in Yorkshire. Alexander Pope, senior, was a successful linen merchant in London; so successful that he found it possible to retire early from business, and to buy a small estate at Binfield, on the edge of Windsor forest. To this estate, in Pope’s twelfth year, the family removed from Kensington, and here they lived for sixteen years. In 1716 they removed to Chiswick, where a year later the father died. Soon afterwards Pope, then a man of note, leased the estate at Twickenham, on which he was to live till his death, in 1744.

The circumstances of Pope’s early life were in many ways peculiar. One of the main reasons for the choice of Binfield was that a number of Roman Catholic families lived in that neighborhood. They formed a little set sufficiently agreeable for social purposes, though not offering much intellectual stimulus to such a mind as Pope’s very early showed itself to be. But if to be a Roman Catholic in England then meant to move in a narrow social circle, it carried with it also more serious limitations. It debarred from public school and university; so that beyond the inferior instruction afforded by the small Catholic schools which he attended till his twelfth year, Pope had no formal education. Two or three facts recorded of this school experience are worthy of mention: that he was taught the rudiments of Latin and Greek together, according to the Jesuit method; that he left one school in consequence of a flogging which he had earned by satirizing the head master; and that at about the age of ten he built a tragedy on the basis of Ogilvy’s translation of Homer. At twelve he had at least learned the rudiments of Greek, and could read Latin fluently, if not correctly. So far as his failings in scholarship are concerned, Pope’s lack of formal education has probably been made too much of. He had no bent for accurate scholarship, nor was breadth and accuracy of scholarship an accomplishment of that age. Addison, whose literary career was preceded by a long period of university residence, knew very little of Greek literature, and had a by no means wide acquaintance with the literature of Rome. Yet scholarship in those days meant classical learning.

Pope might no doubt have profited by the discipline of a regular academic career. He needed, as Mr. Courthope says, ‘training in thought rather than in taste, which he had by nature.’ But such a mind as his is not likely to submit itself readily to rigid processes of thought. It is impossible not to see, at least, that the boy Pope knew how to read, if not how to study; and that what Latin and Greek he read was approached as literature,—a method more common then than now, it is probable. ‘When I had done with my priests,’ he wrote to Spence, ‘I took to reading by myself, for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry; and in a very few years I had dipped into a great number of English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. This I did without any design but that of pleasing myself, and got the language by hunting Edition: current; Page: [xii] after the stories in the several authors I read: rather than read the books to get the language.’ Virgil and Statius were his favorite Latin poets at this time, as is attested not only by the Pastorals and the early translations of the Thebais, but by the innumerable reminiscences, or ‘imitations,’ as Pope called them, which may be traced in his later work. In the meantime, as a more important result of his having to rely so much upon his own resources, his creative power was beginning to manifest itself with singular maturity. At twelve he wrote couplets which were long afterwards inserted without change in the Essay on Criticism, and even in The Dunciad. The Pastorals, composed at sixteen, though conventional in conception and not seldom mechanical in execution, contain passages in the poet’s ripest manner. With the Essay on Criticism, published five years later, Pope reached his full power. Such development as is to be found in his later work is the result of an increase in mental breadth and satirical force. His style was already formed.

Whatever may have been the importance, for good and ill, of Pope’s early method of education, a far more potent factor in determining the conduct of his life and the nature of his work lay in his bodily limitations. The tradition that in his childhood he was physically normal is made dubious by the reported fact that his father was also small and crooked, though organically sound. At all events, the Pope whom the world knew was anything but normal,—stunted to dwarfishness, thin to emaciation, crooked and feeble, so that he had to wear stays and padding, and all his life subject to severe bodily pain. Pope’s relations with other men were seriously affected by this condition. Masculine society in eighteenth-century England had little place for weaklings. The late hours and heavy drinking of London were as little possible for the delicate constitution of Pope as the hard riding and heavy drinking of the country gentlemen with whom he was thrown at Binfield. In a letter from Binfield in 1710 Pope writes: ‘I assure you I am looked upon in the neighborhood for a very sober and well-disposed person, no great hunter, indeed, but a great esteemer of the noble sport, and only unhappy in my want of constitution for that and drinking.’ It is a misconception of Pope’s character to suppose him lacking in a natural robustness of temper to which only his physical limitations denied outlet. Before reaching manhood he had been given more than one rude lesson in discretion. At one time over-confinement to his books had so much reduced his vitality as to convince him that he had not long to live. A fortunate chance put his case into the hands of a famous London physician, who prescribed a strict diet, little study, and much horseback riding. Pope followed the advice, recovered, and thereafter, for the most part, took excellent care of himself; it was the price which he had to pay for living. One unfortunate result was that he was thrown back upon the companionship of women, always petted, always deferred to, always nursed. Such conditions naturally developed the acid cleverness, the nervous brilliancy of the poet Pope; and it is matter of great wonder that from such conditions anything stronger should survive; that there is, when all is said, so much virility and restraint in the best of his work.

The Pastorals, Pope’s first considerable poetical achievement, were according to the poet written in 1704, at the age of sixteen. They were, like all modern pastorals, conventional; but they contain some genuine poetry, and are wonderful exercises in versification. Their diction is often artificial to the point of absurdity, but now and then possesses a stately grace, as in the famous lines:—

‘Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;

Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade,

Where’er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise,

And all things flourish where you turn your eyes’

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Pope had probably been encouraged to write the Pastorals by Sir William Trumbull, to whom the first of them is inscribed. Trumbull was a man of Oxford training, who after a distinguished diplomatic career had come to end his life upon his estate near Binfield, and who had been drawn to the deformed boy by the discovery of their common taste for the classics. For some time before the publication of the Pastorals the manuscript was being circulated privately among such men of established literary reputation as Garth, Walsh, Congreve, and Wycherley, and such patrons of letters as George Granville, Halifax, and Somers. To Walsh in particular Pope afterward expressed his obligation. ‘He used to encourage me much,’ we read in a letter to Spence, written long after, ‘and used to tell me there was one way left of excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim.’ The dictum has become famous, but though Walsh probably meant, by ‘correctness,’ justice of taste as well as measured accuracy of poetic style, his over-praise of the Pastorals leads us to think that form was the main thing in his mind. If Pope’s statement of the date at which the Pastorals were written is reliable, however (and we must keep in mind from the outset the fact that, as Mr. Courthope says, Pope in mature life ‘systematically antedated his compositions in order to obtain credit for precocity’), he did not become acquainted with Walsh until some time after they were written. The critic’s advice, therefore, amounted simply to an encouragement in pursuing the method which Pope had already adopted: in employing a more rigid metrical scheme than any previous poet, even Sandys or Dryden, had attempted. The bookseller Jacob Tonson was shown the manuscript, and offered to publish it; and in 1709 it appeared in Tonson’s Sixth Miscellany.

Through Walsh Pope became acquainted with Wycherley, who introduced the young poet to literary society in London; that is, to the society of the London coffee-houses. The character of the older resorts had already begun to change. Even Will’s had ceased to be the purely literary club of Dryden’s day. It was natural that the age of Anne, in which increasing public honors were paid to literary men, should have been also an age in which literary men took an increasing interest in politics. At about the time when Pope first came up to London, Whig and Tory were beginning to edge away from each other; and though Will’s for a time remained a sort of neutral ground, the old hearty interchange of thought and companionship was no longer possible. Part-political, part-literary clubs, like the Kitcat, the October Club, and the Scriblerus Club, sapped the strength of the older and freer institution; and its doom was sealed when in 1712 Addison established at Button’s a resort for literary Whigs.

During his first years of London experience, Pope probably knew Richard Steele more intimately than any one else. They had met at Will’s, and through Steele Pope had been presented to Addison, and had later become a frequenter of Button’s. It was Steele who urged Pope to write the Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day, who got his Messiah published in The Spectator and printed various short papers of his in The Guardian. Another Whig friend was Jervas the painter, a pupil of Kneller, but an artist of no very considerable achievement. The poet at one time had some lessons in painting from him, and always held him in esteem. So far Pope allowed himself to associate with the Whigs; but he had no intention of taking rank as a Whig partisan. If he wrote prose for Whig journals, it was in honor of the Tory government that the conclusion was added to Windsor Forest in 1713. To Swift’s admiration for this poem, Pope owed the beginning of his life-long friendship with the Dean; but it was a friendship which committed him no more to Toryism than Addison’s had to Whiggery. ‘As old Dryden said before me,’ he wrote in 1713, ‘it is not Edition: current; Page: [xiv] the violent I desire to please; and in very truth, I believe they will all find me, at long run, a mere Papist.’ One amusing fact about Pope’s early experience at Button’s is that he is known to have commended the verses of Addison’s satellites, Budgell and Tickell and Philips, whom later he was to attack so bitterly. The first cause of offence was not long in coming; and an offence sown in the mind of Pope was certain to grow very fast and to live very long. The story of Pope’s falling out with Addison and his friends is the story of the first of a long series of personal enmities which embittered Pope’s life, and, it is too clear, impoverished his work.

The Pastorals were published by Tonson at the end of a volume which opened with some exercises in the same kind of verse by Ambrose Philips. Pope was disposed to commend the work of Philips, even going so far as to say that ‘there were no better eclogues in the language.’ His ardor was somewhat cooled when The Spectator, in a paper which was unmistakably Addison’s, printed an extended comparison of his work and Philips’s, considerably to the advantage of the latter; and was converted into a cold rage by the fact that presently the position taken by The Spectator was expanded in five papers in The Guardian. The subtlety and ingenuity of Pope’s method of retort was an interesting indication of the disingenuousness which became a settled quality of his prose writing. Whatever his poetry may not have been, it was certainly downright; but his method of getting it before the public, of annotating it, and of reinforcing its thought, was habitually circuitous and not seldom dishonest. Pope promptly wrote a sixth paper to The Guardian, ostensibly keeping to Tickell’s argument, but really speaking in irony from beginning to end, picking out the weakest points in Philips’s style and matter, and damning them by fulsome praise. Steele, it is said, was so far deceived as to print the paper in good faith. Pope’s revenge among the wits was complete; but he never forgot a score by paying it. In the Satires and The Dunciad, poor namby-pamby Philips comes up again and again for a punishment to which, in recompense, he now owes his fame.

Pope’s attitude toward Addison is a more serious matter to the critic. Up to the year 1714 Pope, whatever irritation he may have felt toward Addison, had chosen to ‘take it out of’ the followers of the great man rather than out of the great man himself. The insertion of the Tory passage in Windsor Forest might have been taken as a direct challenge to the Whig champion, whose famous celebration of the Whig victory at Blenheim had been so popular. That his relations with Addison were not affected by it is shown by his supplying a prologue for Cato, which was produced within a month of the publication of Windsor Forest. Cato itself was to supply the real bone of contention. It was attacked by the veteran critic John Dennis, against whose strictures Pope undertook to take up the cudgels, in an anonymous Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Frenzy of J. D. It is uncertain whether Addison suspected that Pope was its author, and that his championship was inspired by the desire for personal revenge for Dennis’s treatment of the Essay on Criticism; but he disclaimed responsibility for the rejoinder in a letter written for him to the publisher by Steele. The result was a resentment which bore its final fruit in the lines on Atticus in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Addison, it must be noticed, had warmly praised the Essay on Criticism (1711), and the simpler version of The Rape of the Lock, published a year later; but the publication of Tickell’s version of the first book of the Iliad simultaneously with Pope’s first volume, and Addison’s preference of the weaker version, does not leave the latter quite free from suspicion of parti pris.

Whatever may have been the rights of the difficulty between Addison and Pope, there Edition: current; Page: [xv] is no doubt that in one point, evidently a mere point of judgment, Addison was wrong. After pronouncing the first version of The Rape of the Lock, published in 1712, ‘a delicious little thing, and merum sal,’ he advised against Pope’s plan for expanding it. Without the additions which the author made, in spite of this advice, it would hardly stand, as it now does, an acknowledged masterpiece in its kind. Despite the apparently local and temporary nature of its theme, the poem attracted much greater attention when, in 1714, it appeared in the new form. The poem affords the purest expression of Pope’s genius: his imagination applied without strain to a theme with which it was exactly fitted to cope, his satirical power exercised without the goad of personal rancor, and his light and elegant versification unhampered by the fancied necessity for weightiness. Nothing more just has been said about the poem than this by Hazlitt (On Dryden and Pope): ‘It is the most exquisite specimen of filigree work ever invented. It is as admirable in proportion as it is made of nothing:—

“More subtle web Arachne cannot spin,

Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see

Of scorched dew, do not in th’ air more lightly flee.”

It is made of gauze and silver spangles. The most glittering appearance is given to everything,—to paste, pomatum, billet-doux, and patches. Airs, languid airs, breathe around; the atmosphere is perfumed with affectation. A toilette is described with the solemnity of an altar raised to the Goddess of Vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion of ornaments, no splendor of poetic diction, to set off the meanest things. The balance between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe. The little is made great, and the great little. You hardly know whether to laugh or weep. It is the triumph of insignificance, the apotheosis of foppery and folly. It is the perfection of the mock-heroic.’

If The Rape of the Lock was Pope’s masterpiece in the field of impersonal satire, the Essay on Criticism, which belongs to the same period of the poet’s life, was his masterpiece in the realm of poetic generalization. It was, according to the account of the poet, composed in 1709 and published in 1711. The present editor is inclined to think that justice has never been done to this extraordinary work, either as a product of precocity, or in its own right. It is, in his opinion, not only a manual of criticism, to which the practitioner may apply for sound guidance upon almost any given point, but an exhaustive satire upon false methods of criticism. It is a compendious rule of criticism which works both ways; hardly less rigorous than Aristotle, hardly less catholic than Sainte-Beuve. It does not, as has been alleged, constitute a mere helter-skelter summary of critical platitudes: there is hardly a predicament in modern criticism from which it does not suggest an adequate means of extrication. At all events, it represented, as Mr. Courthope says, the ‘first attempt to trace for English readers the just boundaries of taste.’

The Essay on Criticism was not, like The Rape of the Lock, devoid of the note of personal enmity which was to mark so much of the poet’s later work. John Dennis had probably employed his slashing method in reviewing the Pastorals, and in the Essay Pope took occasion for revenge in the lines on Appius, which unmistakably applied to the author of Appius and Virginia; and which after Dennis’s rejoinder were to be followed up by the attacks in the Satires and The Dunciad.

With the accession of the house of Hanover in 1714 the literary situation in London was considerably modified. The common ground upon which Whigs and Tories had, Edition: current; Page: [xvi] with diminishing success, continued to associate, was taken from under their feet. Politics became the first issue, and literature was relegated to a subordinate position. Fortunately the list of subscribers to Pope’s translation of the Iliad had been made up before the death of Anne. During the few years in which the process of public readjustment absorbed the attention of London, Pope was hard at work upon the most exacting task he had yet undertaken.

The removal of the family from Binfield to Chiswick was made by Pope’s desire. He was now not only a famous author, but a man of fashion; and on both accounts he wished to be nearer London. In leaving the coffee-house society—of which, in truth, he had never been a full member—he had found entrance into ‘aristocratic circles;’ and we hear much in his letters from this time on of the noblemen whose hospitality he accepted, while standing clear of their direct patronage. At Chiswick he found more society and less leisure. Many times during the next few years he accuses himself of laziness, but it does not appear that his mild junketings with the nobilities gave him more relaxation from the toil of his Homer translation than he needed. The first books of the Iliad were published in 1715, and the last books of the Odyssey in 1723. The cripple and man of the world who could do that in the intervals of his house parties and his sieges of physical pain was certainly producing his full share of work.

The Iliad was hailed with applause on all sides, and handsomely paid for. It was in one way a task for which the translator would appear to have been quite unfitted. The Rape of the Lock had proved him the mouthpiece of a conventional and sophisticated age; and conventionality and sophistication are not qualities to go naturally with Homer. The elegance of Pope’s verse becomes at times a mincing neatness, and his fashionable poetic diction in the mouths of Hector and Achilles rings thin and metallic. But though Pope inevitably missed the simplicity and the hearty surge and swing of Homer, he did manage to retain something of his vigor; and his Iliad is still the classic English version. Only half of the Odyssey translation which followed was really the work of Pope, and even his own part was deficient in the spirit which had marked the first translation. It had indeed been undertaken from a very different motive: he could not hope to add greatly to the credit which his Iliad had gained for him, but the cash might readily be increased. The translator actually received nearly £9000 for both translations—a small fortune in those days. Pope’s relations with his collaborators in the affair of the Odyssey are to be noticed, though they have perhaps been too much dwelt upon by the commentators. The facts are briefly these: Fenton translated four books and Broome eight. Both were Cambridge men of parts, Fenton the more brilliant and Broome the more thorough. The latter furnished also all the notes. Pope paid them a very small price for their labor, though not less than they had bargained for, and gave them very little credit for it. Moreover, when he found that there was some stir against him for advertising an Odyssey which was to be his only in part, he induced Broome to write a postscript note claiming only three books for his own share and two for Fenton’s, and insisting that whatever merit they might have was due to Pope’s minute revision.

Before attempting the Odyssey, Pope was unfortunately led to prepare an edition of Shakespeare, which showed some ingenuity in textual emendation. Phrases were, however, too frequently altered as ‘vulgar,’ and metres as ‘incorrect.’ The work was on the whole so mediocre as fairly to lay itself open to the strictures of Theobald, who was consequently made the original hero of The Dunciad. In 1718 the poet leased the estate at Twickenham, and set to work upon the improvements which became a hobby. He had planned to build a town house, but was fortunately dissuaded. The laying out of Edition: current; Page: [xvii] the tiny five acres of grounds is now a matter of history: the paths, the wilderness, the quincunx, the obelisk to his mother’s memory, above all the grotto,—they are more like actors than stage properties in the quiet drama of Pope’s later years.

His work after the completion of the Homer translation was almost entirely restricted to satire. Even the Moral Essays are largely satirical, for Pope’s didacticism was always tinged with laughter. It was too seldom a kindly laughter. His capacity for personal hatred was suffered not only to remain, but to grow upon him; until it became at length one of the ruling motives of his literary life. His first conception of The Dunciad was formed as early as 1720. Sometime within the five years following he seems to have broached his project for wholesale revenge to Swift, who, oddly enough, dissuaded him: ‘Take care the bad poets do not outwit you,’ he wrote, ‘as they have the good ones in every age, whom they have provoked to transmit their names to posterity. Mævius is as well known as Virgil, and Gildon will be as well known as you if his name gets into your verses.’ Thereto Pope dutifully assents: ‘I am much happier for finding our judgments jump in the notion that all scribblers should be passed by in silence. . . . So let Gildon and Philips rest in peace.’ It is not many years later that we find Swift encouraging Pope to go on with The Dunciad, and Pope accepting the advice with an even better grace than in the former instance. The first judgment of both authors was of course the right one. The Dunciad, with all its cleverness, remains the record of a strife between persons whom we do not now care about. It has no determinable significance beyond that; it lacks the didactic soundness of his Essay on Criticism, and the graceful lightness of The Rape of the Lock. Only in a few detached passages in the Moral Essays and Satires, indeed, did he ever succeed in approaching either of these qualities.

‘Pope’s writings,’ says Mr. Courthope, ‘fall naturally into two classes: those which were inspired by fancy or reflection, and those which grew from personal feeling or circumstance.’ The Moral Essays belonged to the former of these classes, the Satires to the latter. The Moral Essays, and more particularly the Essay on Man, are the product of a materialism which marked the age, and which was set before Pope in something like systematic form by Bolingbroke. As Bolingbroke was primarily a politician, and dabbled in philosophy only because the favorite game was for a great part of his life denied him, it could not be expected that much more than shallow generalization would come out of him. At all events, his system of sophistry was all that Pope needed for a thread upon which to string his couplets. Whatever we may think of the Essay on Man now, we need not forget that so keen a critic as Voltaire once called it ‘the most beautiful, the most awful, the most sublime didactic poem that has ever been written in any language.’ Even in our day a conservative critic can say of it: ‘Form and art triumph even in the midst of error; a framework of fallacious generalization gives coherence to the epigrammatic statement of a multitude of individual truths.’

Some of the difficulty that we have found in The Dunciad is present in the Satires. They are full of personalities. As a rule, however, the persons hit off are of some account, both in themselves and as types, rather than as mere objects of private rancor. Altogether these poems contain, besides the famous portraits of contemporaries, many passages of universal application to the virtues and the shortcomings of any practical age.

With the completion of the Satires in 1738, Pope’s work was practically done. His remaining years were to be spent mainly in revising his works and correspondence; the final additions and alterations to The Dunciad being the only task of special importance which in his weakening health, and decreasing creative impulse, he was able to undertake. The range of the poet’s possible achievement was never very great; and he had Edition: current; Page: [xviii] now lost most of the living motives of his work. He had numbered among his acquaintances all the prominent men of the time; and not a few of them had been friends upon whom he depended for encouragement and companionship. Gay had died in 1732, Pope’s mother a year later, and Arbuthnot in 1735. Swift was meantime rapidly breaking up in mind and body, and by 1740 Pope was separated from him by a chasm as impassable as that of death. Bolingbroke remained to him, and he was to have one other friend, Warburton, upon whom he relied for advice and aid during his last years, and who became his literary executor. These, however, were friendships of the mind rather than of the heart; and there is something a little pathetic in the spectacle of the still brilliant poet’s dependence upon the chill and disappointed politician Bolingbroke and the worthy and adoring Bishop Warburton, who can hardly have been a lively companion.

Critics are now fairly well agreed as to Pope’s service to English poetry. Intellectually he was clever rather than profound, and, in consequence, though so much of his work was of the didactic type, he made few original contributions to poetic thought. A poem of Pope’s is a collection of brilliant fragments. He kept a note-book full of clever distiches set down at random; presently so many couplets are taken and classified, others are added, a title is found, and the world applauds. If we except The Rape of the Lock, and possibly the Epistle to Arbuthnot, none of his poems can be called organic in structure. The patching is neatly done, but the result is patchwork. The Essay on Man, therefore, which most of his contemporaries considered his greatest work, appears to us a mosaic of cleverly phrased platitudes and epigrams. Many of the couplets have become proverbial; the work as a whole cannot be taken seriously. ‘But the supposition is,’ says Lowell, ‘that in the Essay on Man Pope did not himself know what he was writing. He was only the condenser and epigrammatizer of Bolingbroke—a very fitting St. John for such a gospel.’ It is to another and less pretentious sort of work that we must turn to find the great versifier at his best.

The Rape of the Lock affords exactly the field in which Pope was fitted to excel. The very qualities of artificiality and sophistication which mar the Homer translations make the story of Belinda and her Baron a perfect thing of its kind. Here is the conventional society which Pope knew, and with which—however he might sneer at it—he really sympathized. The polished trivialities, the shallow gallantry, the hardly veiled coarseness of the London which Pope understood, are here to the life. Depth of emotion, of imagination, of thought, are absent, and properly so; but here are present in their purest forms the flashing wit, the ingenious fancy, the malicious innuendo, of which Pope was undoubtedly master.

In versification his merit is to have done one thing incomparably well. Not only is his latest work marked by the same wit, conciseness, and brilliancy of finish which gained the attention of his earliest critics, but it employs the same metrical form which in boyhood he had brought to a singular perfection. The heroic couplet is now pretty much out of fashion: ‘correctness’ is no longer the first quality which we demand of poetry. No doubt we are fortunate to have escaped the trammels of the rigid mode which so long restrained the flight of English verse. But however tedious and wooden Pope’s instrument may have become in later hands, however mistaken he himself may have been in emphasizing its limitations, there is no doubt that it was the instrument best suited to his hand, and that he secured by means of it a surprising variety of effect.

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We have chronicled thus far a few of the facts of Pope’s life and work. Something—it cannot be very much—remains to be said of his private character. It was a character of marked contradictions, the nether side of which—the weaknesses and positive faults—has, as is common in such cases, been laid bare with sufficient pitilessness. He was, we are told, malicious, penurious, secretive, unchivalrous, underhanded, implacable. He could address Lady Mary Wortley one day with fulsome adulation, and the next—and ever after—with foul abuse. He could deliberately goad his dunces to self-betrayal by his Treatise on the Bathos, and presently flay them in The Dunciad by way of revenge. He could by circuitous means cause his letters—letters carefully edited by him—to be published, and prosecute the publisher for outraging his sensibilities. He could stoop to compassing the most minute ends of private malice by the most elaborate and leisurely methods. He played life as a game composed of a series of petty moves, and, as one of his friends said, ‘could hardly drink a cup of tea without a stratagem.’

But let us see what we might be fairly saying on the other side. If he was capable of malice, he was incapable of flattery; if he was dishonest in the little matters, he was honest in the great ones; if he held mediocrity in contempt, he had an ungrudging welcome for excellence. In later life he had encouragement for the younger generation of writers,—Johnson, Young, Thomson, and poor Savage. If he allowed a fancied injury to separate him from Addison, he had still to boast of the friendship of men like Gay, Arbuthnot, and Swift; and they had to boast of his. He nursed his mother in extreme old age with anxious devotion, and mourned her death with unaffected grief. In his best satirical mood, the best in English verse, he did not hesitate to arraign the highest as well as the lowest; not even Swift could be so fearless. Such things are to be remembered of this correct versifier and merciless satirist Pope: that with only half the body, and hardly more than half the bodily experience, of a man, he had his full share of a man’s failings and a man’s virtues; and that the failings were on the whole upon a less significant plane than the virtues.

Much has been written of Pope’s attitude toward women, and much has been written of his acrid habit of mind. The relation between these facts has been, perhaps, insufficiently grasped. Pope was not by nature a celibate or a hater of women. He was, on the contrary, fond of their society, and anxious to make himself agreeable to them. His failure with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was deserved; the relation was a mere affair of gallantry, which she took good care to snuff out when the adorer’s protestations began to weary her. She was not a womanly person, and forestalled much public indignation at Pope’s subsequent abuse by adopting an equally brutal system of retort.

His failure with Martha Blount was of a very different sort, and of far greater significance. She was the younger of two daughters belonging to one of the Roman Catholic families in Pope’s Windsor Forest circle of acquaintance. With her and with her sister Teresa, Pope was for many years upon terms of the closest intimacy. They were not much alike; and though Pope made a habit of addressing them with guarded impartiality in his correspondence, it is to be seen almost from the first that his feeling for the more practical and worldly older sister was less warm than his feeling for the amiable and feminine “Patty.” Eventually, after years of friendship, the poet made a few indirect overtures to Martha in the direction of marriage; and at last ventured to express himself plainly to Teresa. To his unspeakable humiliation and grief, she treated his honest declaration as an affront to her sister, and upon precisely the painful ground of his deformity, which had for so many years kept him from speaking. Pope could not help feeling that however Martha might, if left to herself, have received his advances, it Edition: current; Page: [xx] was now out of the question to pursue them. His behavior under the circumstances was full of dignity. It was impossible for the friendship to be renewed upon the old footing, but his only revenge beyond that of the necessary withdrawal from familiar intercourse was to settle a pension upon Teresa at the time, and to leave most of his property by will to Martha. We can hardly imagine Pope madly in love, but that he had a calm and steadfast affection for Martha Blount we cannot doubt. He was disposed to marry, and he would have liked to marry her. She represented the ideal of womanhood in his mind; and to her, in the heat of his most savage bouts of idol-breaking, he pauses to raise a white shaft of love and faith.

If the present editor, after a careful and well-rewarded study of the poet and the man, has any mite of interpretation to offer, it is not that Pope was a greater poet, but that he was a better man, than he is commonly painted; an unamiable man, yet not for that reason altogether unworthy of regard; a man with little meannesses carried upon his sleeve for all the world to mock at, and with the large magnanimity which could face the world alone, without advantages of birth or wealth or education or even health, and win a great victory. Such a man cannot conceivably be supposed to have stumbled upon success. Not only inspired cleverness of hand, but force of character and sanity of mind must be responsible for his work. After the lapse of nearly two centuries it should perhaps be right to indulge ourselves somewhat more sparingly in condemnation of his foibles, and to recall more willingly the sound kernel of character which is the basis of his personality. Whatever slander he may have retailed about the camp-fire, whatever foolish vanity he may have had in his uniform, Pope fought the good fight. ‘After all,’ he wrote to Bishop Atterbury, who was trying to make a Protestant of him, ‘I verily believe your Lordship and I are both of the same religion, if we were thoroughly understood by one another, and that all honest and reasonable Christians would be so, if they did but talk together every day; and had nothing to do together but to serve God and live in peace with their neighbors.’

H. W. B.

Andover,

March, 1903

.

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EARLY POEMS

ODE ON SOLITUDE

‘This was a very early production of our Author, written at about twelve years old,’ says Pope in one of his unsigned and unreliable notes. If the statement is true, it was probably written during the year 1700. It is apparently the earliest poem of Pope’s which remains to us, though according to Roscoe, ‘Dodsley, who was honoured with his intimacy, had seen several pieces of an earlier date.’

Happy the man whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Bless’d who can unconcern’dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day;

Sound sleep by night: study and ease

Together mix’d; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

A PARAPHRASE (ON THOMAS À KEMPIS, L. III. C. 2)

Supposed to have been written in 1700; first published from the Caryll Papers in the Athenæum, July 15, 1854.

Elkanah Settle, celebrated as Doeg in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, wrote Successio in honor of the incoming Brunswick dynasty. Warburton (or possibly Pope) in a note on Dunciad, I. 181, says that the poem was ‘written at fourteen years old, and soon after printed.’ A good instance of Pope’s economy of material will be found in the passage upon which that note bears: an adaptation of lines 4, 17 and 18 of this early poem. It was first published in Lintot’s Miscellanies, 1712.

THE FIRST BOOK OF STATIUS’S THEBAIS TRANSLATED IN THE YEAR 1703

Though Pope ascribes this translation to 1703, there is evidence that part of it was done as early as 1699. It was finally revised and published in 1712, but Courthope asserts that ‘it is fair to assume that the body of the composition is preserved in its original form.’

ARGUMENT

Œdipus, King of Thebes, having, by mistake, slain his father Laius, and married his mother Jocasta, put out his own eyes, and resign’d the realm to his sons Eteocles and Polynices. Being neglected by them, he makes his prayer to the Fury Tisiphone, to sow debate betwixt the brothers. They agree at last to reign singly, each a year by turns, and the first lot is obtain’d by Eteocles. Jupiter, in a council of the gods, declares his resolution of punishing the Thebans, and Argives also, by means of a marriage betwixt Polynices and one of the daughters of Adrastus King of Argos. Juno opposes, but to no effect; and Mercury is sent on a message to the shades, to the ghost of Laius, who is to appear to Eteocles, and provoke him to break the agreement. Polynices, in the mean time, departs from Thebes by night, is overtaken by a storm, and arrives at Argos; where he meets with Tideus, who had fled from Calidon, having kill’d his brother. Adrastus entertains them, having receiv’d an oracle from Apollo that his daughters should be married to a boar and a lion, which he understands to be meant of these strangers, by whom the hides of those beasts were worn, and who arrived at the time when Edition: current; Page: [3] he kept an annual feast in honour of that god. The rise of this solemnity. He relates to his guests the loves of Phœbus and Psamathe, and the story of Chorœbus: he inquires, and is made acquainted, with their descent and quality. The sacrifice is renew’d, and the book concludes with a hymn to Apollo.

IMITATIONS OF ENGLISH POETS

These imitations, with the exception of Silence (Lintot, 1712), were not published till 1727. Pope says, however, that they were ‘done as early as the translations, some of them at fourteen and fifteen years old.’ The Happy Life of a Country Parson must have been written later than the rest, as Pope did not know Swift till 1713.

ON A FAN OF THE AUTHOR’S DESIGN

in which was painted the story of cephalus and procris, with the motto ‘aura veni’

Come, gentle air! th’ Æolian shepherd said,

While Procris panted in the secret shade;

Come, gentle air! the fairer Delia cries,

While at her feet her swain expiring lies.

Lo, the glad gales o’er all her beauties stray,

Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play;

In Delia’s hand this toy is fatal found,

Nor could that fabled dart more surely wound:

Both gifts destructive to the givers prove;

Alike both lovers fall by those they love.

Yet guiltless too this bright destroyer lives,

At random wounds, nor knows the wounds she gives;

She views the story with attentive eyes,

And pities Procris while her lover dies.

COWLEY THE GARDEN

Fain would my Muse the flow’ry treasures sing,

And humble glories of the youthful Spring;

Where op’ning roses breathing sweets diffuse,

And soft carnations shower their balmy dews;

Where lilies smile in virgin robes of white,

The thin undress of superficial light;

And varied tulips show so dazzling gay,

Blushing in bright diversities of day.

Each painted flow’ret in the lake below

Surveys its beauties, whence its beauties grow;1903: 10

And pale Narcissus, on the bank in vain

Transformëd, gazes on himself again.

Here aged trees cathedral walks compose,

And mount the hill in venerable rows;

There the green infants in their beds are laid,

The garden’s hope, and its expected shade.

Here orange trees with blooms and pendants shine,

And Vernal honours to their Autumn join;

Exceed their promise in the ripen’d store,

Yet in the rising blossom promise more.1903: 20

There in bright drops the crystal fountains play,

By laurels shielded from the piercing day;

Where Daphne, now a tree as once a maid,

Still from Apollo vindicates her shade;

Still turns her beauties from th’ invading beam,

Nor seeks in vain for succour to the stream.

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The stream at once preserves her virgin leaves,

At once a shelter from her boughs receives,

Where summer’s beauty midst of winter stays,

And winter’s coolness spite of summer’s rays.1903: 30

WEEPING

While Celia’s tears make sorrow bright,

Proud grief sits swelling in her eyes;

The sun, next those the fairest light,

Thus from the ocean first did rise:

And thus thro’ mists we see the sun,

Which else we durst not gaze upon.

These silver drops, like morning dew,

Foretell the fervor of the day:

So from one cloud soft showers we view,

And blasting lightnings burst away.

The stars that fall from Celia’s eye

Declare our doom is drawing nigh.

The baby in that sunny sphere

So like a Phaëton appears,

That Heav’n, the threaten’d world to spare,

Thought fit to drown him in her tears;

Else might th’ ambitions nymph aspire

To set, like him, Heav’n too on fire.

EARL OF ROCHESTER ON SILENCE

Silence! coeval with Eternity,

Thou wert ere Nature’s self began to be,

’T was one vast nothing all, and all slept fast in thee.

Thine was the sway ere Heav’n was form’d, or earth,

Ere fruitful thought conceiv’d Creation’s birth,

Or midwife word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.

Then various elements against thee join’d,

In one more various animal combin’d,

And framed the clam’rous race of busy humankind.

The tongue mov’d gently first, and speech was low,

Till wrangling Science taught its noise and show,

And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.

But rebel Wit deserts thee oft in vain;

Lost in the maze of words he turns again,

And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle reign.

Afflicted Sense thou kindly dost set free,

Oppress’d with argumental tyranny,

And routed Reason finds a safe retreat in thee.

With thee in private modest Dulness lies,

And in thy bosom lurks in thought’s disguise;

Thou varnisher of fools, and cheat of all the wise!

Yet thy indulgence is by both confest;

Folly by thee lies sleeping in the breast,

And ’t is in thee at last that Wisdom seeks for rest.

Silence, the knave’s repute, the whore’s good name,

The only honour of the wishing dame;

The very want of tongue makes thee a kind of Fame.

But couldst thou seize some tongues that now are free,

How Church and State should be obliged to thee!

At Senate and at Bar how welcome wouldst thou be!

Yet speech, ev’n there, submissively withdraws

From rights of subjects, and the poor man’s cause;

Then pompous Silence reigns, and stills the noisy Laws.

Past services of friends, good deeds of foes,

What fav’rites gain, and what the nation owes,

Fly the forgetful world, and in thy arms repose.

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The country wit, religion of the town,

The courtier’s learning, policy o’ th’ gown,

Are best by thee express’d, and shine in thee alone.

The parson’s cant, the lawyer’s sophistry,

Lord’s quibble, critic’s jest, all end in thee;

All rest in peace at last, and sleep eternally.

EARL OF DORSET ARTEMISIA

Tho’ Artemisia talks by fits

Of councils, classics, fathers, wits,

Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke,

Yet in some things methinks she fails:

’T were well if she would pare her nails,

And wear a cleaner smock.

Haughty and huge as High Dutch bride,

Such nastiness and so much pride

Are oddly join’d by fate:

On her large squab you find her spread,

Like a fat corpse upon a bed,

That lies and stinks in state.

She wears no colours (sign of grace)

On any part except her face;

All white and black beside:

Dauntless her look, her gesture proud,

Her voice theatrically loud,

And masculine her stride.

So have I seen, in black and white,

A prating thing, a magpie hight,

Majestically stalk;

A stately worthless animal,

That plies the tongue, and wags the tail,

All flutter, pride, and talk.

PHRYNE

Phryne had talents for mankind;

Open she was and unconfin’d,

Like some free port of trade:

Merchants unloaded here their freight,

And agents from each foreign state

Here first their entry made.

Her learning and good breeding such,

Whether th’ Italian or the Dutch,

Spaniards or French, came to her,

To all obliging she’d appear;

’T was Si Signior, ’t was Yaw Mynheer,

’T was S’il vous plait, Monsieur.

Obscure by birth, renown’d by crimes,

Still changing names, religions, climes,

At length she turns a bride:

In diamonds, pearls, and rich brocades,

She shines the first of batter’d jades,

And flutters in her pride.

So have I known those insects fair

(Which curious Germans hold so rare)

Still vary shapes and dyes;

Still gain new titles with new forms;

First grubs obscene, then wriggling worms,

Then painted butterflies.

DR. SWIFT THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON

Parson, these things in thy possessing

Are better than the bishop’s blessing:

A wife that makes conserves; a steed

That carries double when there ’s need;

October store, and best Virginia,

Tythe pig, and mortuary guinea;

Gazettes sent gratis down and frank’d,

For which thy patron’s weekly thank’d;

A large Concordance, bound long since;

Sermons to Charles the First, when prince;

A Chronicle of ancient standing;

A Chrysostom to smooth thy band in;

The Polyglott—three parts—my text,

Howbeit—likewise—now to my next;

Lo here the Septuagint—and Paul,

To sum the whole—the close of all.

He that has these may pass his life,

Drink with the ’Squire, and kiss his wife;

On Sundays preach, and eat his fill,

And fast on Fridays—if he will;

Toast Church and Queen, explain the news,

Talk with Churchwardens about pews,

Pray heartily for some new gift,

And shake his head at Doctor S—t.

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PASTORALS

Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,

Flumma amem, sylvasque, inglorius!

Virg

The Pastorals, by Pope’s account, were written at sixteen, in 1704. ‘Beyond the fact that he systematically antedated his compositions in order to obtain credit for precocity,’ says Courthope, ‘there is nothing improbable in the statement.’ They were first published in 1709, in Tonson’s Sixth Miscellany. The Discourse on Pastoral Poetry did not appear till the edition of 1717, but is here given the place which he desired for it at the head of the Pastorals: and the original footnotes, referring to critical authorities, are retained.

DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL POETRY

There are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of those which are called Pastorals; nor a smaller than of those which are truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind of poem; and it is my design to comprise in this short paper the substance of those numerous dissertations that critics have made on the subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour. You will also find some points reconciled, about which they seem to differ, and a few remarks which, I think, have escaped their observation.

The origin of Poetry is ascribed to that age which succeeded the creation of the world: and as the keeping of flocks seems to have been the first employment of mankind, the most ancient sort of poetry was probably pastoral.1 It is natural to imagine, that the leisure of those ancient shepherds admitting and inviting some diversion, none was so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing; and that in their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity. From hence a poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a former age, might recommend them to the present. And since the life of shepherds was attended with more tranquillity than any other rural employment, the poets chose to introduce their persons, from whom it received the name of Pastoral.

A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or narrative, or mixed of both:2 the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion, but that short and flowing: the expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature.

The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity,3 brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful.

If we would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age: so that we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the employment. To carry this resemblance yet further, it would not be amiss to give these shepherds some skill in astronomy, as far as it may be useful to that sort of life; and an air of piety to the gods should shine through the poem, which so visibly appears in all the works of antiquity; and it ought to preserve some relish of the old way of writing: the connection should be loose, the narrations and descriptions short,4 and the periods concise. Yet it is not sufficient that the sentences only be brief; the whole eclogue should be so too: for we cannot suppose poetry in those days to have been the business of men, but their recreation at vacant hours.

But, with respect to the present age, nothing more conduces to make these composures natural, than when some knowledge in rural affairs is discovered.5 This may be made to appear rather done by chance than on design, and sometimes is best shown by inference; lest, by too much study to seem natural, we destroy that easy simplicity from whence arises the delight. For what is inviting in this sort of poetry proceeds not so much from the idea of that business, as of the tranquillity of a country life.

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We must therefore use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful; and this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd’s life, and in concealing its miseries.1 Nor is it enough to introduce shepherds discoursing together in a natural way; but a regard must be had to the subject; that it contain some particular beauty in itself, and that it be different in every eclogue. Besides, in each of them a designed scene or prospect is to be presented to our view, which should likewise have its variety. This variety is obtained, in a great degree, by frequent comparisons, drawn from the most agreeable objects of the country; by interrogations to things inanimate; by beautiful digressions, but those short; sometimes by insisting a little on circumstances; and, lastly, by elegant turns on the words, which render the numbers extremely sweet and pleasing. As for the numbers themselves, though they are properly of the heroic measure, they should be the smoothest, the most easy and flowing imaginable.

It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of Pastoral. And since the instructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of necessity be derived from those in whom it is acknowledged so to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of Pastoral) that the critics have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons, having introduced reapers2 and fishermen as well as shepherds. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the cup in the first pastoral is a remarkable instance. In the manners he seems a little defective, for his swains are sometimes abusive and immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learned their excellences from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and, in all points where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a stranger to.3 He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first of which, perhaps, was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the moderns their success has been greatest who have most endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso, in his Aminta, has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients. Spenser’s Calendar, in Mr. Dryden’s opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil.4 Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points: his eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients; he is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him; he has employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets; his stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough; for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a calendar to his eclogues is very beautiful; since by this, besides the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects. Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words, for three months together, or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it; whence it comes to pass that some of Edition: current; Page: [21] his eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and tenth for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season.

Of the following eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Pastoral; that they have as much variety of description, in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser’s; that, in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age.

But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors; whose works, as I had leisure to study, so, I hope, I have not wanted care to imitate.

‘This poem,’ says Pope, ‘was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published.’ The first 289 lines belong to the earlier date. The rest of the poem, with its celebration of the Peace of Utrecht, was added at the instance of Lord Lansdown, the Granville of the opening lines. The aim was obviously that Pope should do for the peaceful triumph of Utrecht what Addison had done for Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim in 1704. It is printed here because the conclusion was an afterthought, and in spite of it the poem as a whole ‘substantially belongs,’ as Courthope remarks, ‘to the Pastoral period.’ Pope ranked it among his ‘juvenile poems.’

PARAPHRASES FROM CHAUCER

JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE

Pope says that this ‘translation’ was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age. It was first published, with the Pastorals, in 1709, in Tonson’s sixth Miscellany. Eventually Pope grouped the Chaucer imitations with Eloisa to Abelard, the translations from Ovid and Statius and the brief Imitations of English Poets. To this collection be prefixed this Advertisement:—

‘The following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verse than Prose. Mr. Dryden’s Fables came out about that time, which occasioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which are added at the end, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old; but having also got into Miscellanies, we have put them here together to complete this Juvenile Volume.’

Warburton asserts that Pope did not intend to include this group of poems in the final edition of his works.

There liv’d in Lombardy, as authors write,

In days of old, a wise and worthy Knight;

Of gentle manners, as of gen’rous race,

Blest with much sense, more riches, and some grace:

Yet, led astray by Venus’ soft delights,

He scarce could rule some idle appetites:

For long ago, let priests say what they could,

Weak sinful laymen were but flesh and blood.

But in due time, when sixty years were o’er,1903: 9

He vow’d to lead this vicious life no more;

Whether pure holiness inspired his mind,

Or dotage turn’d his brain, is hard to find;

But his high courage prick’d him forth to wed,

And try the pleasures of a lawful bed.

This was his nightly dream, his daily care,

And to the heav’nly Powers his constant prayer,

Once, ere he died, to taste the blissful life

Of a kind husband and a loving wife.

These thoughts he fortified with reasons still

(For none want reasons to confirm their will).1903: 20

Grave authors say, and witty poets sing,

That honest wedlock is a glorious thing:

But depth of judgment most in him appears

Who wisely weds in his maturer years.

Then let him choose a damsel young and fair,

To bless his age, and bring a worthy heir;

To soothe his cares, and, free from noise and strife,

Conduct him gently to the verge of life.

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore,

Full well they merit all they feel, and more:1903: 30

Unaw’d by precepts, human or divine,

Like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join;

Nor know to make the present blessing last,

To hope the future, or esteem the past;

But vainly boast the joys they never tried,

And find divulged the secrets they would hide.

The married man may bear his yoke with ease,

Secure at once himself and Heav’n to please;

And pass his inoffensive hours away,

In bliss all night, and innocence all day:1903: 40

Tho’ fortune change, his constant spouse remains,

Augments his joys, or mitigates his pains.

But what so pure which envious tongues will spare?

Some wicked Wits have libell’d all the Fair.

With matchless impudence they style a wife

The dear-bought curse and lawful plague of life,

A bosom serpent, a domestic evil,

A night-invasion, and a midday-devil.

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Let not the wise these sland’rous words regard,

But curse the bones of ev’ry lying bard.1903: 50

All other goods by Fortune’s hand are giv’n,

A wife is the peculiar gift of Heav’n.

Vain Fortune’s favours, never at a stay,

Like empty shadows pass and glide away;

One solid comfort, our eternal wife,

Abundantly supplies us all our life:

This blessing lasts (if those who try say true)

As long as heart can wish—and longer too.

Our grandsire Adam, ere of Eve possess’d,

Alone, and ev’n in Paradise unbless’d,1903: 60

With mournful looks the blissful scene survey’d,

And wander’d in the solitary shade.

The Maker saw, took pity, and bestow’d

Woman, the last, the best reserv’d of God.

A Wife! ah gentle Deities! can he

That has a wife e’er feel adversity?

Would men but follow what the sex advise,

All things would prosper, all the world grow wise.

’T was by Rebecca’s aid that Jacob won

His father’s blessing from an elder son:1903: 70

Abusive Nabal ow’d his forfeit life

To the wise conduct of a prudent wife:

Heroic Judith, as old Hebrews show,

Preserv’d the Jews, and slew th’ Assyrian foe:

At Hester’s suit the persecuting sword

Was sheath’d, and Israel liv’d to bless the Lord.

These weighty motives January the sage

Maturely ponder’d in his riper age;

And charm’d with virtuous joys, and sober life,

Would try that Christian comfort call’d a wife.1903: 80

His friends were summon’d on a point so nice

To pass their judgment, and to give advice;

But fix’d before, and well resolv’d was he

(As men that ask advice are wont to be).

‘My friends,’ he cried (and cast a mournful look

Around the room, and sigh’d before he spoke),

‘Beneath the weight of threescore years I bend,

And, worn with cares, am hastening to my end.

How I have liv’d, alas! you know too well—

In worldly follies which I blush to tell;1903: 90

But gracious Heav’n has oped my eyes at last,

With due regret I view my vices past,

And, as the precept of the church decrees,

Will take a wife, and live in holy ease.

But since by counsel all things should be done,

And many heads are wiser still than one;

Choose you for me, who best shall be content

When my desire’s approv’d by your consent.

‘One caution yet is needful to be told,

To guide your choice; this wife must not be old:1903: 100

There goes a saying, and ’t was shrewdly said,

Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.

My soul abhors the tasteless dry embrace

Of a stale virgin with a winter face:

In that cold season Love but treats his guest

With bean-straw, and tough forage at the best.

No crafty widows shall approach my bed;

Those are too wise for bachelors to wed.

As subtle clerks by many schools are made,

Twice married dames are mistresses o’ th’ trade:1903: 110

But young and tender virgins, ruled with ease,

We form like wax, and mould them as we please.

‘Conceive me, Sirs, nor take my sense amiss;

’T is what concerns my soul’s eternal bliss;

Since if I found no pleasure in my spouse,

As flesh is frail, and who (God help me) knows?

Then should I live in lewd adultery,

And sink downright to Satan when I die:

Or were I curs’d with an unfruitful bed,

The righteous end were lost for which I wed;1903: 120

To raise up seed to bless the Powers above,

And not for pleasure only, or for love.

Think not I dote; ’t is time to take a wife,

When vig’rous blood forbids a chaster life:

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Those that are blest with store of grace divine,

May live like saints by Heav’n’s consent and mine.

‘And since I speak of wedlock, let me say,

(As, thank my stars, in modest truth I may)

My limbs are active, still I’m sound at heart,

And a new vigour springs in ev’ry part.1903: 130

Think not my virtue lost, tho’ time has shed

These rev’rend honours on my hoary head:

Thus trees are crown’d with blossoms white as snow,

The vital sap then rising from below.

Old as I am, my lusty limbs appear

Like winter-greens, that flourish all the year.

Now, Sirs, you know to what I stand inclin’d,

Let ev’ry friend with freedom speak his mind.’

He said; the rest in diff’rent parts divide;

The knotty point was urged on either side:1903: 140

Marriage, the theme on which they all declaim’d,

Some prais’d with wit, and some with reason blamed.

Till, what with proofs, objections, and replies,

Each wondrous positive and wondrous wise,

There fell between his brothers a debate:

Placebo this was call’d, and Justin that.

First to the knight Placebo thus begun,

(Mild were his looks, and pleasing was his tone)

‘Such prudence, Sir, in all your words appears,

As plainly proves Experience dwells with years!1903: 150

Yet you pursue sage Solomon’s advice,

To work by counsel when affairs are nice:

But, with the wise man’s leave, I must protest, }

So may my soul arrive at ease and rest, }

As still I hold your own advice the best. }

‘Sir, I have liv’d a courtier all my days,

And studied men, their manners, and their ways;

And have observ’d this useful maxim still,

To let my betters always have their will.

‘Nay, if my lord affirm’d that black was white,1903: 160

My word was this, “Your Honour’s in the right.”

Th’ assuming Wit, who deems himself so wise

As his mistaken patron to advise,

Let him not dare to vent his dangerous thought;

A noble fool was never in a fault.

This, Sir, affects not you, whose ev’ry word

Is weigh’d with judgment, and befits a Lord:

Your will is mine; and is (I will maintain)

Pleasing to God, and should be so to Man;

At least your courage all the world must praise,1903: 170

Who dare to wed in your declining days.

Indulge the vigour of your mounting blood,

And let gray fools be indolently good,

Who, past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense,

With rev’rend Dulness and grave Impotence.’

Justin, who silent sate, and heard the man,

Thus with a philosophic frown began:

‘A heathen author, of the first degree,

(Who, tho’ not Faith, had Sense as well as we)1903: 179

Bids us be certain our concerns to trust

To those of gen’rous principles and just.

The venture’s greater, I’ll presume to say,

To give your person, than your goods away:

And therefore, Sir, as you regard your rest,

First learn your lady’s qualities at least:

Whether she’s chaste or rampant, proud or civil,

Meek as a saint, or haughty as the devil;

Whether an easy, fond, familiar Fool,

Or such a Wit as no man e’er can rule.

’T is true, perfection none must hope to find1903: 190

In all this world, much less in womankind;

But if her virtue prove the larger share,

Bless the kind Fates and think your fortune rare.

Ah, gentle Sir, take warning of a friend,

Who knows too well the state you thus commend;

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And spite of all his praises must declare,

All he can find is bondage, cost, and care.

Heav’n knows I shed full many a private tear,

And sigh in silence lest the world should hear;

While all my friends applaud my blissful life,1903: 200

And swear no mortal’s happier in a wife:

Demure and chaste as any vestal nun,

The meekest creature that beholds the sun!

But by th’immortal Powers I feel the pain,

And he that smarts has reason to complain.

Do what you list, for me; you must be sage,

And cautious sure; for wisdom is in age:

But at these years to venture on the Fair!

By him who made the ocean, earth, and air,1903: 209

To please a wife, when her occasions call,

Would busy the most vig’rous of us all.

And trust me, sir, the chastest you can choose,

Will ask observance, and exact her dues.

If what I speak my noble lord offend,

My tedious sermon here is at an end.’

‘’T is well, ’t is wondrous well,’ the Knight replies,

‘Most worthy kinsman, faith, you ’re mighty wise!

We, Sirs, are fools; and must resign the cause

To heath’nish authors, proverbs, and old saws.’

He spoke with scorn, and turn’d another way:1903: 220

‘What does my friend, my dear Placebo, say?’

‘I say,’ quoth he, ‘by Heav’n the man’s to blame,

To slander wives, and wedlock’s holy name.’

At this the council rose without delay;

Each, in his own opinion, went his way;

With full consent, that, all disputes appeas’d,

The Knight should marry when and where he pleas’d.

Who now but January exults with joy?

The charms of wedlock all his soul employ:

Each nymph by turns his wavering mind possess’d,1903: 230

And reign’d the short-lived tyrant of his breast;

Whilst fancy pictured ev’ry lively part,

And each bright image wander’d o’er his heart.

Thus, in some public forum fix’d on high,

A mirror shows the figures moving by;

Still one by one, in swift succession, pass

The gliding shadows o’er the polish’d glass.

This lady’s charms the nicest could not blame,

But vile suspicions had aspers’d her fame;

That was with Sense, but not with Virtue blest;1903: 240

And one had Grace that wanted all the rest.

Thus doubting long what nymph he should obey,

He fix’d at last upon the youthful May.

Her faults he knew not (Love is always blind),

But every charm revolv’d within his mind:

Her tender age, her form divinely fair,

Her easy motion, her attractive air,

Her sweet behaviour, her enchanting face,

Her moving softness, and majestic grace.

Much in his prudence did our Knight rejoice,1903: 250

And thought no mortal could dispute his choice:

Once more in haste he summon’d ev’ry friend,

And told them all their pains were at an end.

‘Heav’n, that (said he) inspired me first to wed,

Provides a consort worthy of my bed:

Let none oppose th’ election, since on this

Depends my quiet and my future bliss.

‘A dame there is, the darling of my eyes,

Young, beauteous, artless, innocent, and wise;

Chaste, tho’ not rich; and, tho’ not nobly born,1903: 260

Of honest parents, and may serve my turn.

Her will I wed, if gracious Heav’n so please,

To pass my age in sanctity and ease;

And thank the Powers, I may possess alone

The lovely prize, and share my bliss with none!

If you, my friends, this virgin can procure,

My joys are full, my happiness is sure.

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‘One only doubt remains: full oft, I’ve heard,

By casuists grave and deep divines averr’d,

That’t is too much for human race to know

The bliss of Heav’n above and earth below:1903: 271

Now should the nuptial pleasures prove so great,

To match the blessings of the future state,

Those endless joys were ill exchanged for these:

Then clear this doubt, and set my mind at ease.’

This Justin heard, nor could his spleen control,

Touch’d to the quick, and tickled at the soul.

‘Sir Knight,’ he cried, ‘if this be all you dread,

Heav’n put it past a doubt whene’er you wed;

And to my fervent prayers so far consent,

That, ere the rites are o’er, you may repent!1903: 281

Good Heav’n, no doubt, the nuptial state approves,

Since it chastises still what best it loves.

‘Then be not, Sir, abandon’d to despair; }

Seek, and perhaps you’ll find among the Fair }

One that may do your business to a hair; }

Not ev’n in wish your happiness delay,

But prove the scourge to lash you on your way:

Then to the skies your mounting soul shall go,

Swift as an arrow soaring from the bow!

Provided still, you moderate your joy,1903: 291

Nor in your pleasures all your might employ:

Let Reason’s rule your strong desires abate,

Nor please too lavishly your gentle mate.

Old wives there are, of judgment most acute,

Who solve these questions beyond all dispute;

Consult with those, and be of better cheer;

Marry, do penance, and dismiss your fear.’

So said, they rose, nor more the work delay’d:

The match was offer’d, the proposals made.

The parents, you may think, would soon comply;1903: 301

The old have int’rest ever in their eye.

Nor was it hard to move the lady’s mind;

When Fortune favours, still the Fair are kind.

I pass each previous settlement and deed,

Too long for me to write, or you to read;

Nor will with quaint impertinence display

The pomp, the pageantry, the proud array.

The time approach’d; to church the parties went,

At once with carnal and devout intent:

Forth came the priest, and bade th’ obedient wife1903: 311

Like Sarah or Rebecca lead her life;

Then pray’d the Powers the fruitful bed to bless,

And make all sure enough with holiness.

And now the palace gates are open’d wide, }

The guests appear in order, side by side, }

And, placed in state, the bridegroom and the bride. }

The breathing flute’s soft notes are heard around,

And the shrill trumpets mix their silver sound;

The vaulted roofs with echoing music ring,

These touch the vocal stops, and those the trembling string.1903: 321

Not thus Amphion tuned the warbling lyre,

Nor Joab the sounding clarion could inspire,

Nor fierce Theodamas, whose sprightly strain

Could swell the soul to rage, and fire the martial train.

Bacchus himself, the nuptial feast to grace,

(So poets sing) was present on the place:

And lovely Venus, Goddess of Delight, }

Shook high her flaming torch in open sight, }

And danced around, and smiled on ev’ry Knight:1903: 330 }

Pleas’d her best servant would his courage try,

No less in wedlock than in liberty.

Full many an age old Hymen had not spied

So kind a bridegroom, or so bright a bride.

Ye Bards! renown’d among the tuneful throng

For gentle lays, and joyous nuptial song,

Think not your softest numbers can display

The matchless glories of this blissful day;

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The joys are such as far transcend your range,

When tender youth has wedded stooping age.1903: 340

The beauteous dame sat smiling at the board,

And darted am’rous glances at her lord.

Not Hester’s self, whose charms the Hebrews sing,

E’er look’d so lovely on her Persian King:

Bright as the rising sun in summer’s day,

And fresh and blooming as the month of May!

The joyful knight survey’d her by his side,

Nor envied Paris with his Spartan bride:

Still as his mind revolv’d with vast delight

Th’ entrancing raptures of th’ approaching night,1903: 350

Restless he sat, invoking every Power

To speed his bliss, and haste the happy hour.

Meantime the vig’rous dancers beat the ground,

And songs were sung, and flowing bowls went round.

With od’rous spices they perfumed the place,

And mirth and pleasure shone in ev’ry face.

Damian alone, of all the menial train,

Sad in the midst of triumphs, sigh’d for pain,

Damian alone, the Knight’s obsequious Squire,1903: 359

Consumed at heart, and fed a secret fire.

His lovely mistress all his soul possess’d;

He look’d, he languish’d, and could take no rest:

His task perform’d, he sadly went his way,

Fell on his bed, and loath’d the light of day:

There let him lie; till his relenting dame

Weep in her turn, and waste in equal flame.

The weary sun, as learned poets write,

Forsook th’ horizon, and roll’d down the light;

While glitt’ring stars his absent beams supply,

And night’s dark mantle overspread the sky.1903: 370

Then rose the guests, and as the time required,

Each paid his thanks, and decently retired.

The foe once gone, our Knight prepared t’undress,

So keen he was, and eager to possess:

But first thought fit th’ assistance to receive,

Which grave physicians scruple not to give:

Satyrion near, with hot eringoes stood,

Cantharides, to fire the lazy blood,

Whose use old Bards describe in luscious rhymes,

And Critics learn’d explain to modern times.1903: 380

By this the sheets were spread, the bride undress’d,

The room was sprinkled, and the bed was bless’d.

What next ensued beseems not me to say;

’T is sung, he labour’d till the dawning day;

Then briskly sprung from bed, with heart so light, }

As all were nothing he had done by night, }

And sipp’d his cordial as he sat upright. }

He kiss’d his balmy spouse with wanton play,

And feebly sung a lusty roundelay:1903: 389

Then on the couch his weary limbs he cast;

For ev’ry labour must have rest at last.

But anxious cares the pensive Squire opprest,

Sleep fled his eyes, and Peace forsook his breast;

The raging flames that in his bosom dwell,

He wanted art to hide, and means to tell:

Yet hoping time th’ occasion might betray,

Composed a sonnet to the lovely May;

Which, writ and folded with the nicest art,

He wrapt in silk, and laid upon his heart.

When now the fourth revolving day was run,1903: 400

(’T was June, and Cancer had receiv’d the sun)

Forth from her chamber came the beauteous bride;

The good old Knight mov’d slowly by her side.

High mass was sung; they feasted in the hall;

The servants round stood ready at their call.

The Squire alone was absent from the board,

And much his sickness griev’d his worthy lord,

Who pray’d his spouse, attended with her train,

To visit Damian, and divert his pain.

Th’ obliging dames obey’d with one consent:1903: 410

They left the hall, and to his lodging went.

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The female tribe surround him as he lay,

And close beside him sat the gentle May:

Where, as she tried his pulse, he softly drew

A heaving sigh, and cast a mournful view!

Then gave his bill, and bribed the Powers divine,

With secret vows to favour his design.

Who studies now but discontented May?

On her soft couch uneasily she lay:

The lumpish husband snored away the night,1903: 420

Till coughs awaked him near the morning light.

What then he did, I ’ll not presume to tell,

Nor if she thought herself in Heav’n or Hell:

Honest and dull in nuptial bed they lay,

Till the bell toll’d, and all arose to pray.

Were it by forceful Destiny decreed,

Or did from Chance, or Nature’s power proceed;

Or that some star, with aspect kind to love,

Shed its selectest influence from above;1903: 429

Whatever was the cause, the tender dame

Felt the first motions of an infant flame;

Receiv’d th’ impressions of the lovesick Squire,

And wasted in the soft infectious fire.

Ye Fair, draw near, let May’s example move

Your gentle minds to pity those who love!

Had some fierce tyrant in her stead been found,

The poor adorer sure had hang’d or drown’d:

But she, your sex’s mirror, free from pride,

Was much too meek to prove a homicide.

But to my tale:—Some sages have defin’d1903: 440

Pleasure the sov’reign bliss of humankind:

Our Knight (who studied much, we may suppose)

Derived his high philosophy from those;

For, like a prince, he bore the vast expense

Of lavish pomp, and proud magnificence:

His house was stately, his retinue gay.

Large was his train, and gorgeous his array.

His spacious garden, made to yield to none,

Was compass’d round with walls of solid stone;

Priapus could not half describe the grace

(Tho’ God of gardens) of this charming place:1903: 451

A place to tire the rambling wits of France

In long descriptions, and exceed Romance:

Enough to shame the gentlest bard that sings

Of painted meadows, and of purling springs.

Full in the centre of the flowery ground }

A crystal fountain spread its streams around, }

The fruitful banks with verdant laurels crown’d: }

About this spring (if ancient Fame say true)

The dapper Elves their moonlight sports pursue:1903: 460

Their pygmy King, and little fairy Queen,

In circling dances gambol’d on the green,

While tuneful sprites a merry concert made,

And airy music warbled thro’ the shade.

Hither the noble Knight would oft repair

(His scene of pleasure, and peculiar care);

For this he held it dear, and always bore

The silver key that lock’d the garden door.

To this sweet place in summer’s sultry heat

He used from noise and bus’ness to retreat;1903: 470

And here in dalliance spend the livelong day,

Solus cum sola, with his sprightly May:

For whate’er work was undischarg’d abed,

The duteous Knight in this fair garden sped.

But ah! what mortal lives of bliss secure?

How short a space our worldly joys endure!

O Fortune, fair, like all thy treach’rous kind,

But faithless still, and wav’ring as the wind!

O painted monster, form’d mankind to cheat,1903: 479

With pleasing poison, and with soft deceit!

This rich, this am’rous, venerable Knight,

Amidst his ease, his solace, and delight,

Struck blind by thee, resigns his days to grief,

And calls on death, the wretch’s last relief.

The rage of jealousy then seiz’d his mind,

For much he fear’d the faith of womankind.

His wife, not suffer’d from his side to stray, }

Was captive kept; he watch’d her night and day, }

Abridg’d her pleasures, and confin’d her sway.1903: 489 }

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Full oft in tears did hapless May complain,

And sigh’d full oft; but sigh’d and wept in vain;

She look’d on Damian with a lover’s eye;

For oh, ’t was fix’d; she must possess or die!

Nor less impatience vex’d her am’rous Squire,

Wild with delay, and burning with desire.

Watch’d as she was, yet could he not refrain

By secret writing to disclose his pain:

The dame by signs reveal’d her kind intent,

Till both were conscious what each other meant,

Ah! gentle Knight, what would thy eyes avail,1903: 500

Tho’ they could see as far as ships can sail?

’T is better, sure, when blind, deceiv’d to be,

Than be deluded when a man can see!

Argus himself, so cautious and so wise,

Was overwatch’d, for all his hundred eyes:

So many an honest husband may, ’t is known,

Who, wisely, never thinks the case his own.

The dame at last, by diligence and care,

Procured the key her Knight was wont to bear;1903: 509

She took the wards in wax before the fire,

And gave th’ impression to the trusty Squire.

By means of this some wonder shall appear,

Which, in due place and season, you may hear.

Well sung sweet Ovid, in the days of yore,

What sleight is that which love will not explore!

And Pyramus and Thisbe plainly show

The feats true lovers, when they list, can do:

Tho’ watch’d and captive, yet in spite of all,

They found the art of kissing thro’ a wall.

But now no longer from our tale to stray,1903: 520 }

It happ’d, that once upon a summer’s day }

Our rev’rend Knight was urged to am’rous play: }

He rais’d his spouse ere matin-bell was rung,

And thus his morning canticle he sung:

‘Awake, my love, disclose thy radiant eyes;

Arise, my wife, my beauteous lady, rise!

Hear how the doves with pensive notes complain,

And in soft murmurs tell the trees their pain:

The winter’s past; the clouds and tempests fly;

The sun adorns the fields, and brightens all the sky.1903: 530

Fair without spot, whose ev’ry charming part

My bosom wounds, and captivates my heart!

Come, and in mutual pleasures let’s engage,

Joy of my life, and comfort of my age.’

This heard, to Damian straight a sign she made

To haste before; the gentle Squire obey’d:

Secret and undescried he took his way,

And ambush’d close behind an arbour lay.

It was not long ere January came,

And hand in hand with him his lovely dame;1903: 540

Blind as he was, not doubting all was sure,

He turn’d the key, and made the gate secure.

‘Here let us walk,’ he said, ‘observ’d by none,

Conscious of pleasures to the world unknown:

So may my soul have joy, as thou, my wife,

Art far the dearest solace of my life;

And rather would I choose, by Heav’n above,

To die this instant, than to lose thy love.

Reflect what truth was in my passion shown, }

When, unendow’d, I took thee for my own,1903: 550 }

And sought no treasure but thy heart alone. }

Old as I am, and now deprived of sight, }

Whilst thou art faithful to thy own true Knight, }

Nor age, nor blindness, robs me of delight. }

Each other loss with patience I can bear,

The loss of thee is what I only fear.

‘Consider then, my lady and my wife,

The solid comforts of a virtuous life.

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As first, the love of Christ himself you gain;1903: 559

Next, your own honour undefiled maintain;

And, lastly, that which sure your mind must move,

My whole estate shall gratify your love:

Make your own terms, and ere to-morrow’s sun

Displays his light, by Heav’n it shall be done

I seal the contract with a holy kiss,

And will perform—by this, my dear, and this.

Have comfort, Spouse, nor think thy lord unkind;

’T is love, not jealousy, that fires my mind:

For when thy charms my sober thoughts engage,1903: 569

And join’d to them my own unequal age,

From thy dear side I have no power to part,

Such secret transports warm my melting heart.

For who that once possess’d those heav’nly charms,

Could live one moment absent from thy arms?’

He ceas’d, and May with modest grace replied

(Weak was her voice, as while she spoke she cried):

‘Heav’n knows (with that a tender sigh she drew)

I have a soul to save as well as you;

And, what no less you to my charge commend,1903: 579

My dearest honour, will to death defend.

To you in holy church I gave my hand,

And join’d my heart in wedlock’s sacred band:

Yet after this, if you distrust my care,

Then hear, my lord, and witness what I swear:

First may the yawning earth her bosom rend,

And let me hence to Hell alive descend;

Or die the death I dread no less than Hell,

Sew’d in a sack, and plunged into a well;

Ere I my fame by one lewd act disgrace,

Or once renounce the honour of my race.

For know, Sir Knight, of gentle blood I came;1903: 591

I loathe a whore, and startle at the name.

But jealous men on their own crimes reflect,

And learn from thence their ladies to suspect:

Else why these needless cautions, Sir, to me?

These doubts and fears of female constancy?

This chime still rings in every lady’s ear,

The only strain a wife must hope to hear.’

Thus while she spoke a sidelong glance she cast,

Where Damain kneeling worship’d as she past.1903: 600

She saw him watch the motions of her eye,

And singled out a pear tree planted nigh:

’T was charged with fruit that made a goodly show,

And hung with dangling pears was every bough.

Thither th’ obsequious Squire address’d his pace,

And climbing, in the summit took his place;

The Knight and Lady walk’d beneath in view,

Where let us leave them, and our tale pursue.

’T was now the season when the glorious sun

His heav’nly progress through the Twins had run;1903: 610

And Jove, exalted, his mild influence yields,

To glad the glebe, and paint the flowery fields:

Clear was the day, and Phœbus, rising bright,

Had streak’d the azure firmament with light;

He pierc’d the glitt’ring clouds with golden streams,

And warm’d the womb of earth with genial beams.

It so befell, in that fair morning tide }

The fairies sported on the garden side, }

And in the midst their monarch and his bride. }

So featly tripp’d the light-foot Ladies round,1903: 620 }

The Knights so nimbly o’er the greensward bound, }

That scarce they bent the flowers, or touch’d the ground. }

The dances ended, all the fairy train

For pinks and daisies search’d the flowery plain,

While on a bank reclin’d of rising green,

Thus, with a frown, the King bespoke his Queen.

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‘ ’T is too apparent, argue what you can,

The treachery you women use to man:

A thousand authors have this truth made out,

And sad experience leaves no room for doubt.1903: 630

‘Heav’n rest thy spirit, noble Solomon,

A wiser Monarch never saw the sun:

All wealth, all honours, the supreme degree

Of earthly bliss, was well bestow’d on thee!

For sagely hast thou said, “Of all mankind,

One only just, and righteous, hope to find:

But shouldst thou search the spacious world around,

Yet one good woman is not to be found.”

‘Thus says the King who knew your wickedness;

The son of Sirach testifies no less.1903: 640

So may some wildfire on your bodies fall,

Or some devouring plague consume you all;

As well you view the lecher in the tree,

And well this honourable Knight you see:

But since he’s blind and old (a helpless case),

His Squire shall cuckold him before your face.

‘Now by my own dread Majesty I swear,

And by this awful sceptre which I bear,

No impious wretch shall ’scape unpunish’d long,1903: 649

That in my presence offers such a wrong.

I will this instant undeceive the Knight,

And in the very act restore his sight:

And set the strumpet here in open view, }

A warning to the ladies, and to you, }

And all the faithless sex, for ever to be true.” }

‘And will you so,’ replied the Queen, ‘indeed? }

Now, by my mother’s soul, it is decreed, }

She shall not want an answer at her need. }

For her, and for her daughters, I ’ll engage,

And all the sex in each succeeding age;1903: 660

Art shall be theirs to varnish an offence,

And fortify their crimes with confidence.

Nay, were they taken in a strict embrace,

Seen with both eyes, and pinion’d on the place;

All they shall need is to protest and swear,

Breathe a soft sigh, and drop a tender tear;

Till their wise husbands, gull’d by arts like these,

Grow gentle, tractable, and tame as geese.

‘What tho’ this sland’rous Jew, this Solomon,

Call’d women fools, and knew full many a one?1903: 670

The wiser Wits of later times declare

How constant, chaste, and virtuous women are:

Witness the Martyrs, who resign’d their breath,

Serene in torments, unconcern’d in death;

And witness next what Roman authors tell,

How Arria, Portia, and Lucretia fell.

‘But since the sacred leaves to all are free,

And men interpret texts, why should not we?

By this no more was meant than to have shown }

That sov’reign goodness dwells in him alone,1903: 680 }

Who only Is, and is but only One. }

But grant the worst; shall women then be weigh’d

By every word that Solomon hath said?

What tho’ this king (as ancient story boasts)

Built a fair temple to the Lord of Hosts;

He ceas’d at last his Maker to adore,

And did as much for idol Gods, or more.

Beware what lavish praises you confer

On a rank lecher and idolater;

Whose reign indulgent God, says Holy Writ,1903: 690

Did but for David’s righteous sake permit;

David, the monarch after Heav’n’s own mind,

Who lov’d our sex, and honour’d all our kind.

‘Well, I ’m a woman, and as such must speak;

Silence would swell me, and my heart would break.

Know, then, I scorn your dull authorities,

Your idle Wits, and all their learned lies:

By Heav’n, those authors are our sex’s foes,

Whom, in our right, I must and will oppose.’

‘Nay (quoth the King) dear madam, be not wroth:1903: 700

I yield it up; but since I gave my oath,

That this much injur’d Knight again should see,

It must be done—I am a King,’ said he,

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‘And one whose faith has ever sacred been—’

‘And so has mine (she said)—I am a Queen:

Her answer she shall have, I undertake;

And thus an end of all dispute I make.

Try when you list; and you shall find, my lord,

It is not in our sex to break our word.’1903: 709

We leave them here in this heroic strain,

And to the Knight our story turns again;

Who in the garden, with his lovely May,

Sung merrier than the cuckoo or the jay:

This was his song, ‘O kind and constant be,

Constant and kind I ’ll ever prove to thee.’

Thus singing as he went, at last he drew

By easy steps to where the pear-tree grew:

The longing dame look’d up, and spied her love

Full fairly perch’d among the boughs above.

She stopp’d, and sighing, ‘O good Gods!’ she cried,1903: 720

‘What pangs, what sudden shoots distend my side?

O for that tempting fruit, so fresh, so green!

Help, for the love of Heav’n’s immortal Queen!

Help, dearest lord, and save at once the life

Of thy poor infant, and thy longing wife!’

Sore sigh’d the Knight to hear his lady’s cry,

But could not climb, and had no servant nigh:

Old as he was, and void of eyesight too,

What could, alas! a helpless husband do?

‘And must I languish then (she said), and die,1903: 730

Yet view the lovely fruit before my eye?

At least, kind Sir, for charity’s sweet sake,

Vouchsafe the trunk between your arms to take,

Then from your back I might ascend the tree;

Do you but stoop, and leave the rest to me.’

‘With all my soul,’ he thus replied again,

‘I ’d spend my dearest blood to ease thy pain.’

With that his back against the trunk he bent;

She seiz’d a twig, and up the tree she went.

Now prove your patience, gentle ladies all!1903: 740

Nor let on me your heavy anger fall:

’T is truth I tell, tho’ not in phrase refin’d;

Tho’ blunt my tale, yet honest is my mind.

What feats the lady in the tree might do,

I pass, as gambols never known to you;

But sure it was a merrier fit, she swore,

Than in her life she ever felt before.

In that nice moment, lo! the wond’ring Knight

Look’d out, and stood restor’d to sudden sight.1903: 749

Straight on the tree his eager eyes he bent,

As one whose thoughts were on his spouse intent:

But when he saw his bosom-wife so dress’d,

His rage was such as cannot be express’d.

Not frantic mothers when their infants die

With louder clamours rend the vaulted sky:

He cried, he roar’d, he storm’d, he tore his hair;

‘Death! Hell! and Furies! what dost thou do there?’

‘What ails my lord?’ the trembling dame replied,

‘I thought your patience had been better tried:1903: 759

Is this your love, ungrateful and unkind,

This my reward for having cured the blind?

Why was I taught to make my husband see,

By struggling with a man upon a tree?

Did I for this the power of magic prove?

Unhappy wife, whose crime was too much love!’

‘If this be struggling, by this holy light,

’T is struggling with a vengeance (quoth the Knight):

So Heav’n preserve the sight it has restored,

As with these eyes I plainly saw thee whored;

Whored by my slave—perfidious wretch! may Hell1903: 770

As surely seize thee, as I saw too well.’

‘Guard me, good Angels!’ cried the gentle May,

‘Pray Heav’n this magic work the proper way!

Alas, my love! ’t is certain, could you see,

You ne’er had used these killing words to me:

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So help me, Fates! as ’t is no perfect sight,

But some faint glimm’ring of a doubtful light.’

‘What I have said (quoth he) I must maintain,

For by th’ immortal Powers it seem’d too plain—’

‘By all those Powers, some frenzy seiz’d your mind1903: 780 }

(Replied the dame): are these the thanks I find? }

Wretch that I am, that e’er I was so kind!’ }

She said; a rising sigh express’d her woe,

The ready tears apace began to flow,

And as they fell she wiped from either eye

The drops (for women, when they list, can cry).

The Knight was touch’d; and in his looks appear’d

Signs of remorse, while thus his spouse he cheer’d;

‘Madam, ’t is past, and my short anger o’er!

Come down, and vex your tender heart no more.1903: 790

Excuse me, dear, if aught amiss was said,

For, on my soul, amends shall soon be made:

Let my repentance your forgiveness draw;

By Heav’n, I swore but what I thought I saw.’

‘Ah, my lov’d lord! ’t was much unkind (she cried)

On bare suspicion thus to treat your bride.

But till your sight ’s establish’d, for a while

Imperfect objects may your sense beguile.

Thus, when from sleep we first our eyes display, }

The balls are wounded with the piercing ray,1903: 800 }

And dusky vapours rise, and intercept the day; }

So just recov’ring from the shades of night }

Your swimming eyes are drunk with sudden light, }

Strange phantoms dance around, and skim before your sight. }

Then, Sir, be cautious, nor too rashly deem;

Heav’n knows how seldom things are what they seem!

Consult your reason, and you soon shall find

’T was you were jealous, not your wife unkind:

Jove ne’er spoke oracle more true than this,

None judge so wrong as those who think amiss.’1903: 810

With that she leap’d into her lord’s embrace,

With well dissembled virtue in her face.

He hugg’d her close, and kiss’d her o’er and o’er,

Disturb’d with doubts and jealousies no more:

Both pleas’d and bless’d, renew’d their mutual vows:

A fruitful wife, and a believing spouse.

Thus ends our tale; whose moral next to make,

Let all wise husbands hence example take;

And pray, to crown the pleasure of their lives,

To be so well deluded by their wives.1903: 820

THE WIFE OF BATH HER PROLOGUE

Not published until 1714, but naturally classified with January and May, and not improbably the product of the same period.

Pope asserted that this poem was composed in 1711. Its date of publication is indicated by a letter from Pope to Martha Blount, written in 1714, in which he speaks of it as ‘just out.’ Eventually it was classed by the poet as a ‘juvenile poem’ among the earlier translations and imitations. This Advertisement was prefixed:—

The hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer’s House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered; the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title.

This, the first mature original work of the author, was written in 1709, when Pope was in his twentieth year. It was not published till 1711.

PART I

Introduction. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.

PART II

Causes hindering a true judgment. Pride. Imperfect learning. Judging by parts, and not by the whole. Critics in wit, language, versification only. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire. Partiality—too much love to a sect—to the ancients or moderns. Prejudice or prevention. Singularity. Inconstancy. Party spirit. Envy. Against envy, and in praise of good-nature. When severity is chiefly to be used by critics.

PART III

Rules for the conduct and manners in a Critic. Candour. Modesty. Good breeding. Sincerity and freedom of advice. When one’s counsel is to be restrained. Character of an Edition: current; Page: [75] incorrigible poet. And of an impertinent critic. Character of a good critic. The history of criticism, and characters of the best critics; Aristotle. Horace. Dionysius. Petronius. Quintilian. Longinus. Of the decay of Criticism, and its revival. Erasmus. Vida. Boileau. Lord Roscommon, &c. Conclusion.

ON MRS. TOFTS, A FAMOUS OPERA-SINGER

Katharine Tofts was an English opera singer popular in London between 1703 and 1709.

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,

As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along:

But such is thy av’rice, and such is thy pride,

That the beasts must have starv’d, and the poet have died.

EPISTLE TO MRS. BLOUNT, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.

To Teresa Blount. First published in Lintot’s Miscellany, in 1712. See note.

In these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,

And all the writer lives in ev’ry line;

His easy Art may happy Nature seem,

Trifles themselves are elegant in him.

Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,

Who without flatt’ry pleas’d the Fair and Great;

Still with esteem no less convers’d than read,

With wit well-natured, and with books well-bred:

His heart his mistress and his friend did share,1903: 9

His time the Muse, the witty, and the fair.

Thus wisely careless, innocently gay,

Cheerful he play’d the trifle, Life, away;

Till Fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest,

As smiling infants sport themselves to rest.

Ev’n rival Wits did Voiture’s death deplore,

And the gay mourn’d who never mourn’d before;

The truest hearts for Voiture heav’d with sighs,

Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes:

The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture’s death,1903: 19

But that for ever in his lines they breathe.

Let the strict life of graver mortals be

A long, exact, and serious Comedy;

In ev’ry scene some Moral let it teach,

And, if it can, at once both please and preach.

Let mine an innocent gay farce appear,

And more diverting still than regular,

Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace,

Tho’ not too strictly bound to Time and Place:

Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,

Few write to those, and none can live to these.1903: 30

Too much your Sex is by their forms confin’d,

Severe to all, but most to Womankind;

Custom, grown blind with Age, must be your guide;

Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;

By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame,

Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame;

Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase;

But sets up one, a greater, in their place;

Well might you wish for change by those accurst,1903: 39

But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.

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Still in constraint your suff’ring Sex remains,

Or bound in formal, or in real chains:

Whole years neglected, for some months ador’d,

The fawning Servant turns a haughty Lord.

Ah, quit not the free innocence of life,

For the dull glory of a virtuous Wife;

Nor let false shows, or empty titles please;

Aim not at Joy, but rest content with Ease.

The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray’rs,

Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,1903: 50

The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,

And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.

She glares in Balls, front Boxes, and the Ring,

A vain, unquiet, glitt’ring, wretched thing!

Pride, Pomp, and State but reach her outward part;

She sighs, and is no Duchess at her heart.

But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you

Are destin’d Hymen’s willing victim too;

Trust not too much your now resistless charms,

Those Age or Sickness soon or late disarms:1903: 60

Good humour only teaches charms to last,

Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past;

Love, rais’d on Beauty, will like that decay,

Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day;

As flow’ry bands in wantonness are worn,

A morning’s pleasure, and at evening torn;

This binds in ties more easy, yet more strong,

The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture’s early care still shone the same,1903: 69

And Montausier was only changed in name;

By this, ev’n now they live, ev’n now they charm,

Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.

Now crown’d with myrtle, on th’ Elysian coast,

Amid those lovers, joys his gentle Ghost:

Pleas’d, while with smiles his happy lines you view,

And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you.

The brightest eyes of France inspired his Muse;

The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse;

And dead, as living, ’t is our Author’s pride

Still to charm those who charm the world beside.1903: 80

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL

This Ode was written, we find [in 1712], at the desire of Steele; and our Poet, in a letter to him on that occasion, says,—‘You have it, as Cowley calls it, just warm from the brain; it came to me the first moment I waked this morning; yet you ’ll see, it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head, not only the verses of Hadrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho.’ It is possible, however, that our Author might have had another composition in his head, besides those he here refers to: for there is a close and surprising resemblance between this Ode of Pope, and one of an obscure and forgotten rhymer of the age of Charles the Second, Thomas Flatman. (Warton). Pope’s version of the Adriani morientis ad Animam was written at about this date, and sent to Steele for publication in The Spectator. It ran as follows:—

Charles Jervas was an early and firm friend of Pope’s, and, himself an indifferent painter, at one time gave Pope some instruction in painting. Dryden’s translation of Fresnoy appears to have been a hasty and perfunctory piece of work. The poem was first published in 1712.

IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

‘The four verses,’ says Ward, ‘are apparently Canto IV. vv. 59-62. The Countess of Winchilsea, a poetess whom Rowe hailed as inspired by ‘more than Delphic ardour,’ replied by some pretty lines, where she declares that “disarmed with so genteel an air,” she gives over the contest.’

In vain you boast poetic names of yore,

And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:

Fate doom’d the fall of every female wit;

But doom’d it then, when first Ardelia writ.

Of all examples by the world confess’d,

I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;

Who, like her mistress on Britannia’s throne,

Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own.

To write their praise you but in vain essay:

Ev’n while you write, you take that praise away.

Light to stars the sun does thus restore,

But shines himself till they are seen no more.

ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY

It was long rumored that this poem was literally founded on fact: that the unfortunate lady was a maiden with whom Pope was in love, and from whom he was separated. The fact seems to be that the poem’s only basis in truth lay in Pope’s sympathy for an unhappy married woman about whom he wrote to Caryll in 1712. The verses were not published till 1717, but were probably written several years earlier.

What beck’ning ghost along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

’T is she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor’d?

Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?

Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,

Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well?

To bear too tender or too firm a heart,

To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?

Is there no bright reversion in the sky

For those who greatly think, or bravely die?1903: 10

Why bade ye else, ye Powers! her soul aspire

Above the vulgar flight of low desire?

Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes,

The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods:

Thence to their images on earth it flows,

And in the breasts of Kings and Heroes glows.

Most souls, ’t is true, but peep out once an age,

Dull sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage;

Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years

Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;1903: 20

Like eastern Kings a lazy state they keep,

And, close confin’d to their own palace, sleep.

From these, perhaps (ere Nature bade her die),

Fate snatch’d her early to the pitying sky.

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As into air the purer spirits flow,

And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below;

So flew the soul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,

Thou, mean deserter of thy brother’s blood!1903: 30

See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,

These cheeks now fading at the blast of death;

Cold is that breast which warm’d the world before,

And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.

Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,

Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;

On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,

And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates;

There passengers shall stand, and pointing say

(While the long funerals blacken all the way),1903: 40

Lo! these were they whose souls the furies steel’d,

And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.

Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!

So perish all, whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow

For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe.

What can atone, O ever injured shade!

Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?

No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear

Pleas’d thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier;1903: 50

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,

By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,

By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d,

By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d.

What tho’ no friends in sable weeds appear,

Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,

And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show?

What tho’ no weeping loves thy ashes grace,

Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?1903: 60

What tho’ no sacred earth allow thee room,

Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb?

Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress’d,

And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:

There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,

There the first roses of the year shall blow;

While angels with their silver wings o’ershade

The ground, now sacred by thy relics made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,

What once had Beauty, Titles, Wealth and Fame.1903: 70

How lov’d, how honour’d once, avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee;

’T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall like those they sung,

Deaf the prais’d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.

Ev’n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,

Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays;

Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,

And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;1903: 80

Life’s idle bus’ness at one gasp be o’er,

The Muse forgot, and thou belov’d no more!

MESSIAH

Written, according to Courthope, in 1712.

ADVERTISEMENT

In reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah, which foretell the coming of Christ, and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of Edition: current; Page: [85] the thoughts and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of Pastoral Poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting any thing of my own; since it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptions of the Prophet are superior to those of the Poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.

‘It appears by this motto,’ says Pope, in a footnote supplied for Warburton’s edition, ‘that the following poem was written or published at the lady’s request. But there are some other circumstances not unworthy relating. Mr. Caryll (a gentleman who was secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he followed into France, author of the comedy of Sir Solomon Single, and of several translations in Dryden’s Miscellanies) originally proposed it to him in a view of putting an end, by this piece of ridicule, to a quarrel that was risen between two noble families, those of Lord Petre and Mrs. Fermor, on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her hair. The author sent it to the lady, with whom he was acquainted; and she took it so well as to give about copies of it. That first sketch (we learn from one of his letters) was written in less than a fortnight, in 1711, in two cantos only, and it was so printed first, in a Miscellany of Bern. Lintot’s, without the name of the author. But it was received so well that he made it more considerable the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five cantos.’

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

Arabella Fermor

Fermor, Arabella

TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR

Madam,—

It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you. Yet you may bear me witness it was intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the air of a secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offer’d to a bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake, to consent to the publication of one more correct: this I was forced to, before I had executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to complete it.

The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons, are made to act in a poem: for the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies; let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady; but it is so much the concern of a poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms. The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French book called La Comte de Gabalis, which, both in its title and size, is so like a novel, that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these gentlemen, the four elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or Dæmons of earth, delight in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures imaginable; for, they say, any mortal may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts,—an inviolate preservation of chastity.

As to the following cantos, all the passages of them are as fabulous as the Vision at the beginning, or the Transformation at the end (except the loss of your hair, which I always mention with reverence). The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as it is now managed, resembles you in nothing but in beauty.

If this poem had as many graces as there are in your person or in your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro’ the world half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem, Madam,

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1713 AND 1717

PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON’S CATO

This prologue was written in 1713, after Addison had given Pope two of the main causes which led to their estrangement; and itself led the way for the third. Addison’s faint praise of the Pastorals, and disagreement with Pope as to the advisability of revising The Rape of the Lock, had not as yet led to their estrangement. But when not long after the presentation of Cato, Pope ventured to become its champion against the attacks of John Dennis, Addison’s quiet disclaimer of responsibility for his anonymous defender cut Pope to the quick.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,

To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;

To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,

Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold:

For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,

Commanding tears to stream thro’ ev’ry age:

Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,

And foes to virtue wonder’d how they wept.

Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move

The Hero’s glory, or the Virgin’s love;1903: 10

In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,

And wild Ambition well deserves its woe.

Here tears shall flow from a more gen’rous cause,

Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws.

He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,

And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes:

Virtue confess’d in human shape he draws,

What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:

No common object to your sight displays,

But what with pleasure Heav’n itself surveys,1903: 20

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,

And greatly falling with a falling state.

While Cato gives his little senate laws,

What bosom beats not in his country’s cause?

Who sees him act, but envies ev’ry deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?

Ev’n when proud Cæsar, midst triumphal cars,

The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,

Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

Show’d Rome her Cato’s figure drawn in state;1903: 30

As her dead father’s rev’rend image past,

The pomp was darken’d, and the day o’ercast;

The triumph ceas’d, tears gush’d from ev’ry eye,

The world’s great Victor pass’d unheeded by;

Her last good man dejected Rome ador’d,

And honour’d Cæsar’s less than Cato’s sword.

Britons, attend: be worth like this approv’d,

And show you have the virtue to be mov’d.

With honest scorn the first famed Cato view’d

Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued;1903: 40

Your scene precariously subsists too long

On French translation and Italian song.

Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;

Be justly warm’d with your own native rage:

Such plays alone should win a British ear

As Cato’s self had not disdain’d to hear.

EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE’S JANE SHORE DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD

Nicholas Rowe’s play was acted at Drury Lane in February, 1714. Mrs. Oldfield played the leading part, but Pope’s Epilogue was not used.

Prodigious this! the Frail-one of our play

From her own sex should mercy find today!

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You might have held the pretty head aside,

Peep’d in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,—

‘The play may pass—but that strange creature, Shore,

I can’t—indeed now—I so hate a whore!’

Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,

And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;

So from a sister sinner you shall hear,

‘How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!1903: 10

But let me die, all raillery apart,

Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;

And, did not wicked custom so contrive,

We’d be the best good-natured things alive.’

There are, ’t is true, who tell another tale,

That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;

Such rage without betrays the fire within;

In some close corner of the soul they sin;

Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,

Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.1903: 20

The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,

Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.

Would you enjoy soft nights and solid dinners?

Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners.

Well, if our author in the Wife offends,

He has a Husband that will make amends:

He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving;

And sure such kind good creatures may be living.

In days of old, they pardon’d breach of vows;1903: 29

Stern Cato’s self was no relentless spouse.

Plu—Plutarch, what ’s his name that writes his life,

Tells us, that Cato dearly lov’d his wife:

Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her,

He ’d recommend her as a special breeder.

To lend a wife, few here would scruple make;

But, pray, which of you all would take her back?

Tho’ with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring,

The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing.

The man had courage, was a sage, ’t is true,

And lov’d his country—but what ’s that to you?1903: 40

Those strange examples ne’er were made to fit ye,

But the kind cuckold might instruct the city:

There, many an honest man may copy Cato

Who ne’er saw naked sword, or look’d in Plato.

If, after all, you think it a disgrace,

That Edward’s Miss thus perks it in your face,

To see a piece of failing flesh and blood,

In all the rest so impudently good:

Faith, let the modest matrons of the town

Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down.1903: 50

TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME

What ’s Fame with men, by custom of the nation,

Is call’d, in women, only Reputation:

About them both why keep we such a pother?

Part you with one, and I ’ll renounce the other.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK

Atria longa patent; sed nec coenantibus usquam,

Nec somno, locus est: quam bene non habitas.

Martial.

These verses were first published in 1714. There is no actual proof that they are Pope’s, but as his editors have always retained them, they are here given.

See, Sir, here ’s the grand approach,

This way is for his Grace’s coach;

There lies the bridge, and here ’s the clock;

Observe the lion and the cock,

The spacious court, the colonnade,

And mark how wide the hall is made!

The chimneys are so well design’d,

They never smoke in any wind.

This gallery ’s contrived for walking,

The windows to retire and talk in;

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The council-chamber for debate,

And all the rest are rooms of state.

Thanks, Sir, cried I, ’t is very fine,

But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ ye dine?

I find by all you have been telling

That ’t is a house, but not a dwelling.

LINES TO LORD BATHURST

In illustration Mitford refers to Pope’s letter to Lord Bathurst of September 13, 1732, where ‘Mr. L.’ is spoken of as ‘more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber.’ (Ward.) Proof is lacking that these lines belong to Pope. They were printed by E. Curll in 1714.

This was first printed in 1727 in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, but was probably written in 1715. Macer is supposed to be Ambrose Philips. The ‘borrow’d Play’ of the eighth line would then have been The Distrest Mother, adapted by Philips from Racine.

IMITATION OF MARTIAL

Referred to in a letter from Trumbull to Pope dated January, 1716. The epigram imitated is the twenty-third of the tenth book.

At length, my Friend (while Time, with still career,

Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year),

Sees his past days safe out of Fortune’s power,

Nor dreads approaching Fate’s uncertain hour;

Reviews his life, and in the strict survey, }

Finds not one moment he could wish away, }

Pleased with the series of each happy day. }

Such, such a man extends his life’s short space,

And from the goal again renews the race;

For he lives twice, who can at once employ

The present well, and ev’n the past enjoy.

IMITATION OF TIBULLUS

See the fourth elegy of Tibullus, lines 55, 56. In the course of his high-flown correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, after her departure for the East, Pope often suggests the possibility of his travelling to meet her. ‘But if my fate be such,’ he says on the occasion which brought forth this couplet, ‘that this body of mine (which is as ill matched to my mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it!’

This mock pastoral was one of three which made up the original volume of Town Eclogues, published anonymously in 1716. Three more appeared in a later edition. It is now known that only the Basset-Table is Pope’s, the rest being the work of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

THE CHALLENGE A COURT BALLAD

This lively ballad, written in 1717, belongs to the period of Pope’s intimacy with court society. The three ladies here addressed were attached to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

I

To one fair lady out of Court,

And two fair ladies in,

Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,

And wit and love no sin;

Come these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,

To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.

With a fa, la, la.

II

What passes in the dark third row,

And what behind the scene,

Couches and crippled chairs I know,

And garrets hung with green;

I know the swing of sinful hack,

Where many damsels cry alack.

With a fa, la, la.

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III

Then why to Courts should I repair,

Where’s such ado with Townshend?

To hear each mortal stamp and swear,

And every speech with Zounds end;

To hear ’em rail at honest Sunderland,

And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland.

With a fa, la, la.

IV

Alas! like Schutz, I cannot pun,

Like Grafton court the Germans;

Tell Pickenbourg how slim she ’s grown,

Like Meadows run to sermons;

To Court ambitious men may roam,

But I and Marlbro’ stay at home.

With a fa, la, la.

V

In truth, by what I can discern,

Of courtiers ’twixt you three,

Some wit you have, and more may learn

From Court, than Gay or me;

Perhaps, in time, you ’ll leave high diet,

To sup with us on milk and quiet.

With a fa, la, la.

VI

At Leicester-Fields, a house full high,

With door all painted green,

Where ribbons wave upon the tie

(A milliner I mean),

There may you meet us three to three,

For Gay can well make two of me.

With a fa, la, la.

VII

But should you catch the prudish itch

And each become a coward,

Bring sometimes with you lady Rich,

And sometimes mistress Howard;

For virgins to keep chaste must go

Abroad with such as are not so.

With a fa, la, la.

VIII

And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends:

God send the King safe landing;

And make all honest ladies friends

To armies that are standing;

Preserve the limits of those nations,

And take off ladies’ limitations.

With a fa, la, la.

THE LOOKING-GLASS ON MRS. PULTENEY

Mrs. Pulteney was a daughter of one John Gumley, who had made a fortune by a glass manufactory.

With scornful mien, and various toss of air,

Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,

Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,

She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.

Far other carriage graced her virgin life,

But charming Gumley’s lost in Pulteney’s wife.

Not greater arrogance in him we find,

And this conjunction swells at least her mind.

O could the sire, renown’d in glass, produce

One faithful mirror for his daughter’s use!

Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,

And by reflection learn to mend her face:

The wonted sweetness to her form restore,

Be what she was, and charm mankind once more.

PROLOGUE, DESIGNED FOR MR. D’URFEY’S LAST PLAY

‘Tom’ D’Urfey was a writer of popular farces under the Restoration. Through Addison’s influence his play The Plotting Sisters was revived for his benefit; and the present prologue was possibly written for that occasion. It was first published in 1727.

Grown old in rhyme, ’t were barb’rous to discard

Your persevering, unexhausted Bard:

Damnation follows death in other men,

But your damn’d poet lives and writes again.

The adventurous lover is successful still,

Who strives to please the Fair against her will.

Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,

Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.

He scorn’d to borrow from the Wits of yore,

But ever writ, as none e’er writ before.1903: 10

You modern Wits, should each man bring his claim,

Have desperate debentures on your fame;

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And little would be left you, I’m afraid,

If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.

From this deep fund our author largely draws,

Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.

Tho’ plays for honour in old time he made,

’T is now for better reasons—to be paid.

Believe him, he has known the world too long,

And seen the death of much immortal song.1903: 20

He says, poor poets lost, while players won,

As pimps grow rich while gallants are undone.

Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,

The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.

Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;

But ’t is substantial happiness to eat.

Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,

Nor force him to be damn’d to get his living.

PROLOGUE TO THE ‘THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE’

Three Hours after Marriage was a dull and unsuccessful farce produced in January, 1717, at the Drury Lane Theatre. Though it was attributed to the joint authorship of Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, direct proof is lacking not only of Pope’s share in the play, but of his authorship of the Prologue. Of the latter fact, at least, we have, however, indirect evidence in Pope’s resentment of the ridicule cast by Cibber, in a topical impromptu, upon the play; the incident which first roused Pope’s enmity for Cibber, which resulted in his eventually displacing Theobald as the central figure in The Dunciad.

Authors are judged by strange capricious rules,

The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:

Yet sure the best are most severely fated;

For Fools are only laugh’d at, Wits are hated.

Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;

But fool ’gainst fool, is barb’rous civil war.

Why on all Authors then should Critics fall?

Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.

Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;

Cry, ‘Damn not us, but damn the French, who made it.’1903: 10

By running goods these graceless Owlers gain;

Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain:

But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,

Dash’d by these rogues, turns English common draught.

They pall Molière’s and Lopez’ sprightly strain,

And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain.

How shall our Author hope a gentler fate,

Who dares most impudently not translate?

It had been civil, in these ticklish times,

To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes.1903: 20

Spaniards and French abuse to the world’s end,

But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend.

If any fool is by our satire bit,

Let him hiss loud, to show you all he ’s hit.

Poets make characters, as salesmen clothes;

We take no measure of your Fops and Beaux;

But here all sizes and all shapes you meet,

And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street.

Gallants, look here! this Foolscap has an air1903: 29

Goodly and smart, with ears of Issachar.

Let no one fool engross it, or confine

A common blessing! now ’t is yours, now mine.

But poets in all ages had the care

To keep this cap for such as will, to wear.

Our Author has it now (for every Wit

Of course resign’d it to the next that writ)

And thus upon the stage ’t is fairly thrown;

Let him that takes it wear it as his own.

PRAYER OF BRUTUS FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

The Rev. Aaron Thompson, of Queen’s College, Oxon., translated the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He submitted the translation to Pope, 1717, who gave him the following Edition: current; Page: [109] lines, being a translation of a Prayer of Brutus. (Carruthers.)

Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chase

To mountain wolves and all the savage race,

Wide o’er th’ aerial vault extend thy sway,

And o’er th’ infernal regions void of day.

On thy Third Reign look down; disclose our fate;

In what new station shall we fix our seat?

When shall we next thy hallow’d altars raise,

And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

While there is no absolute date to be given for this or the following poem, both evidently belong to the period of Pope’s somewhat fanciful attachment for Lady Mary.

I

In beauty, or wit,

No mortal as yet

To question your empire has dar’d;

But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning,

To yield to a lady was hard.

II

Impertinent schools,

With musty dull rules,

Have reading to females denied:

So Papists refuse

The Bible to use,

Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.

III

’T was a woman at first,

(Indeed she was curst)

In Knowledge that tasted delight,

And sages agree

The laws should decree

To the first possessor the right.

IV

Then bravely, fair Dame,

Resume the old claim,

Which to your whole sex does belong;

And let men receive,

From a second bright Eve,

The knowledge of right and of wrong.

V

But if the first Eve

Hard doom did receive,

When only one apple had she,

What a punishment new

Shall be found out for you,

Who tasting have robb’d the whole tree?

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES ON A PORTRAIT OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, PAINTED BY KNELLER

The origin of this famous poem seems to have lain jointly in Pope’s perception of the poetic availability of the Héloise-Abelard legend, and in his somewhat factitious grief in his separation from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. They met in 1715, became friends, and in 1716 Lady Mary left England. In a letter of June, 1717, Pope commends the poem to her consideration, with a suggestion of the personal applicability of the concluding lines to his own suffering under the existing circumstance of their separation.

ELOISA TO ABELARD

ARGUMENT

Abelard and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in Learning and Beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to Religion. It was many years after this separation that a letter of Abelard’s to a friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This, awakening all her tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted), which give so lively a picture of the struggles of Grace and Nature, Virtue and Passion.

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1718 AND 1727

AN INSCRIPTION UPON A PUNCH-BOWL IN THE SOUTH SEA YEAR, FOR A CLUB: CHASED WITH JUPITER PLACING CALLISTO IN THE SKIES, AND EUROPA WITH THE BULL

Pope himself became seriously involved in the South Sea speculations, and while he does not appear to have been a heavy loser in the end, his unwise action for friends, notably for Lady Mary Wortley seems to have gotten him into some difficulties. This was of course written before the bursting of the bubble; presumably in 1720.

Come, fill the South Sea goblet full;

The gods shall of our stock take care;

Europa pleased accepts the Bull,

And Jove with joy puts off the Bear.

EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. SECRETARY OF STATE

Craggs was made Secretary of War in 1717, when Addison was Secretary of State. He succeeded Addison in 1720, and died in the following year. He was an intimate friend and correspondent of Pope’s after 1711.

A soul as full of Worth as void of Pride,

Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide,

Which nor to guilt nor fear its Caution owes,

And boasts a Warmth that from no passion flows;

A face untaught to feign; a judging eye,

That darts severe upon a rising lie,

And strikes a blush thro’ frontless Flattery—

All this thou wert; and being this before,

Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.

Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,

Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise;

But candid, free, sincere, as you began,

Proceed, a Minister, but still a Man.

Be not (exalted to whate’er degree)

Ashamed of any friend, not ev’n of me:

The patriot’s plain but untrod path pursue;

If not, ’t is I must be ashamed of you.

A DIALOGUE

POPE

Since my old friend is grown so great,

As to be Minister of State,

I ’m told, but ’t is not true, I hope,

That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.

CRAGGS

Alas! if I am such a creature,

To grow the worse for growing greater,

Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,

’T is Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.

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VERSES TO MR. C. ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, OCT. 22

Probably Craggs, who was in office at the time when Pope established himself at Twickenham. (Ward.)

Few words are best; I wish you well;

Bethel, I ’m told, will soon be here;

Some morning walks along the Mall,

And ev’ning friends, will end the year.

If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost,

You please to see, on Twit’nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host:

For three whole days you here may rest

From Office bus’ness, news, and strife;

And (what most folks would think a jest)

Want nothing else, except your wife.

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

1722

Mr. Gay

Mr. Gay

TO MR. GAY WHO HAD CONGRATULATED POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND GARDENS

Written early in 1722.

Ah, friend! ’t is true—this truth you lovers know—

In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow,

In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes

Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens;

Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,

And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.

What are the gay Parterre, the chequer’d Shade,

The morning Bower, the ev’ning Colonnade,

But soft recesses of uneasy minds,

To sigh unheard in to the passing winds?

So the struck deer in some sequester’d part

Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;

He stretch’d unseen in coverts hid from day,

Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER

These drawings were made for the adornment of Pope’s house at Twickenham.

What god, what genius did the pencil move,

When Kneller painted these?

’T was friendship, warm as Phœbus, kind as Love,

And strong as Hercules.

EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER PREFIXED TO PARNELL’S POEMS

Such were the notes thy once-lov’d Poet sung,

Till Death untimely stopp’d his tuneful tongue.

Oh, just beheld and lost! admired and mourn’d!

With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn’d!

Bless’d in each science! bless’d in ev’ry strain!

Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear—in vain!

For him thou oft hast bid the world attend,

Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;

For Swift and him despised the farce of state,

The sober follies of the wise and great,1903: 10

Dext’rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit,

And pleas’d to ’scape from Flattery to Wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear

(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear);

Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,

Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays;

Who, careless now of Int’rest, Fame, or Fate,

Perhaps forgets that Oxford e’er was great;

Or deeming meanest what we greatest call,

Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.1903: 20

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And sure if aught below the seats divine

Can touch immortals, ’t is a soul like thine;

A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,

Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,

The rage of power, the blast of public breath,

The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;

The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade;

’T is hers the brave man’s latest steps to trace,

Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.1903: 30

When Int’rest calls off all her sneaking train,

And all th’ obliged desert, and all the vain,

She waits, or to the scaffold or the cell,

When the last ling’ring friend has bid farewell.

Ev’n now she shades thy evening walk with bays

(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise);

Ev’n now, observant of the parting ray,

Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day,

Thro’ fortune’s cloud one truly great can see,

Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.1903: 40

TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS

Brutus, says Pope, was a play ‘altered from Shakespeare by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose desire these choruses were composed to supply as many wanting in his play.’ Marcus Brutus was one of two plays (the other retaining Shakespeare’s title) manufactured by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, out of Julius Cæsar. Both were published in 1722. Pope’s choruses stand after the first and second acts of Brutus. The plays have no literary merit.

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS

Strophe I

Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought,

Groves, where immortal sages taught,

Where heav’nly visions Plato fired,

And Epicurus lay inspired!

In vain your guiltless laurels stood

Unspotted long with human blood.

War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,

And steel now glitters in the Muses’ shades.

Antistrophe I

O Heav’n-born sisters! source of Art!

Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;

Who lead fair Virtue’s train along,

Moral Truth and mystic Song!

To what new clime, what distant sky,

Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?

Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore?

Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

Strophe II

When Athens sinks by fates unjust,

When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;

Perhaps ev’n Britain’s utmost shore

Shall cease to blush with strangers’ gore,

See Arts her savage sons control,

And Athens rising near the pole!

Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,

And civil madness tears them from the land.

Antistrophe II

Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball?

Freedom and Arts together fall;

Fools grant whate’er Ambition craves,

And men, once ignorant, are slaves.

O curs’d effects of civil hate,

In ev’ry age, in ev’ry state!

Still, when the lust of tyrant Power succeeds,

Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS

Semichorus

O tyrant Love! hast thou possest

The prudent, learned, and virtuous breast?

Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And arts but soften us to feel thy flame.

Love, soft intruder, enters here,

But ent’ring learns to be sincere.

Marcus with blushes owns he loves,

And Brutus tenderly reproves.

Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire

Which Nature hath imprest?

Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire

The mild and gen’rous breast?

Chorus

Love’s purer flames the Gods approve;

The Gods and Brutus bend to love:

Brutus for absent Portia sighs,

And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes.

What is loose love? a transient gust,

Spent in a sudden storm of lust,

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A vapour fed from wild desire,

A wand’ring, self-consuming fire.

But Hymen’s kinder flames unite,

And burn for ever one;

Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,

Productive as the sun.

Semichorus

O source of ev’ry social tie,

United wish, and mutual joy!

What various joys on one attend,

As son, as father, brother, husband, friend?

Whether his hoary sire he spies,

While thousand grateful thoughts arise;

Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye,

Or views his smiling progeny;

What tender passions take their turns!

What home-felt raptures move!

His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,

With Rev’rence, Hope, and Love.

Chorus

Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,

Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,

Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises,

Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine!

Purest Love’s unwasting treasure,

Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,

Days of ease, and nights of pleasure,

Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

1723

Martha Blount

Blount, Martha

TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTHDAY

Written to Martha Blount in 1723. Lines 5-10 were elsewhere adapted for a versified celebration of his own birthday, and for an epitaph on a suicide!

Oh, be thou blest with all that Heav’n can send,

Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and a Friend:

Not with those Toys the female world admire,

Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.

With added years if Life bring nothing new,

But, like a sieve, let ev’ry blessing thro’,

Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o’er,

And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;

Is that a birthday? ’t is alas! too clear,

’T is but the funeral of the former year.

Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,

And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,

Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace,

Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.

Let day improve on day, and year on year,

Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;

Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,

In some soft dream, or extasy of joy,

Peaceful sleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,

And wake to raptures in a life to come.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOWE

Mary Howe was appointed Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, in 1720. ‘Lepell’ was another Maid of Honour, referred to in The Challenge.

What is Prudery?

’T is a beldam,

Seen with Wit and Beauty seldom.

’T is a fear that starts at shadows;

’T is (no, ’t is n’t) like Miss Meadows.

’T is a virgin hard of feature,

Old, and void of all good-nature;

Lean and fretful; would seem wise,

Yet plays the fool before she dies.

’T is an ugly envious shrew,

That rails at dear Lepell and you.

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

Catharine Howard, one of Queen Caroline’s waiting-women; afterward Countess of Suffolk and mistress to George II. Her identification as the Chloe of Moral Essays, II., makes it easier to believe Walpole’s statement that this lady once reprieved a condemned criminal that ‘an experiment might be made on his ears for her benefit.’

I know the thing that ’s most uncommon;

(Envy, be silent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable Woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend:

Not warp’d by Passion, awed by Rumour,

Not grave thro’ Pride, nor gay thro’ Folly,

An equal mixture of Good-humour,

And sensible soft Melancholy.

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‘Has she no faults then (Envy says), sir?’

Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her,

The woman ’s deaf and does not hear.

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

John Moore

John Moore

TO MR. JOHN MOORE AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER

How much, egregious Moore! are we

Deceiv’d by shows and forms!

Whate’er we think, whate’er we see,

All humankind are Worms.

Man is a very Worm by birth,

Vile reptile, weak, and vain!

A while he crawls upon the earth,

Then shrinks to earth again.

That woman is a Worm we find,

E’er since our Grandam’s evil:

She first convers’d with her own kind,

That ancient Worm, the Devil.

The learn’d themselves we Bookworms name,

The blockhead is a Slowworm;

The nymph whose tail is all on flame,

Is aptly term’d a Glowworm.

The fops are painted Butterflies,

That flutter for a day;

First from a Worm they take their rise,

And in a Worm decay.

The flatterer an Earwig grows;

Thus worms suit all conditions;

Misers are Muckworms; Silkworms, beaux;

And Deathwatches, physicians.

That statesmen have the worm, is seen

By all their winding play;

Their conscience is a Worm within,

That gnaws them night and day.

Ah, Moore, thy skill were well employ’d,

And greater gain would rise,

If thou couldst make the courtier void

The Worm that never dies!

O learned friend of Abchurch-Lane,

Who sett’st our entrails free,

Vain is thy Art, thy Powder vain,

Since Worms shall eat ev’n thee.

Our fate thou only canst adjourn

Some few short years, no more!

Ev’n Button’s Wits to Worms shall turn,

Who Maggots were before.

THE CURLL MISCELLANIES UMBRA

Though speculation has connected several other persons with this poem, it is probably still another hit at the luckless Ambrose Philips. It, with the three following poems, was first published in the Miscellanies, 1727.

Close to the best known author Umbra sits,

The constant index to old Button’s Wits.

‘Who ’s here?’ cries Umbra. ‘Only Johnson.’—‘O!

Your slave,’ and exit; but returns with Rowe.

‘Dear Rowe, let’s sit and talk of tragedies:’

Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.

Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel,

And in a moment fastens upon Steele;

But cries as soon, ‘Dear Dick, I must be gone,

For, if I know his tread, here’s Addison.’

Says Addison to Steele, ‘’T is time to go:’

Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.

Poor Umbra, left in this abandon’d pickle,

Ev’n sits him down, and writes to honest Tickell.

Fool! ’t is in vain from Wit to Wit to roam;

Know, Sense, like Charity, ‘begins at home.’

BISHOP HOUGH

A Bishop, by his neighbors hated,

Has cause to wish himself translated;

But why should Hough desire translation,

Loved and esteem’d by all the nation?

Yet if it be the old man’s case,

I’ll lay my life I know the place:

’T is where God sent some that adore him,

And whither Enoch went before him.

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SANDYS’ GHOST[ ]OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD ON THE NEW OVID’S METAMORPHOSES: AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY

This refers to the translation undertaken by Sir Samuel Garth, which aimed to complete Dryden’s translation of Ovid, avoiding the rigidness of Sandys’ method. The enterprise was begun in 1718, when these verses were probably written.

EPITAPH

First applied by Pope to Francis Chartres, but published in this form in 1727.

Here lies Lord Coningsby—be civil!

The rest God knows—perhaps the Devil.

THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS

Of gentle Philips will I ever sing,

With gentle Philips shall the valleys ring.

My numbers too for ever will I vary,

With gentle Budgell, and with gentle Carey.

Or if in ranging of the names I judge ill,

With gentle Carey and with gentle Budgell.

Oh! may all gentle bards together place ye,

Men of good hearts, and men of delicacy.

May Satire ne’er befool ye or beknave ye,

And from all Wits that have a knack, God save ye!

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER

Pallas grew vapourish once and odd;

She would not do the least right thing,

Either for Goddess or for God,

Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown’d, and ‘Use (he cried) those eyes

So skilful, and those hands so taper;

Do something exquisite and wise—’

She bow’d, obey’d him, and cut paper.

This vexing him who gave her birth,

Thought by all Heav’n a burning shame,

What does she next, but bids, on earth,

Her Burlington do just the same.

Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;

But sure you ’ll find it hard to spoil

The Sense and Taste of one that bears

The name of Saville and of Boyle.

Alas! one bad example shown,

How quickly all the sex pursue!

See, madam, see the arts o’erthrown

Between John Overton and you!

EPIGRAM AN EMPTY HOUSE

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come:

Knock as you please, there ’s nobody at home.

POEMS SUGGESTED BY GULLIVER

ODE TO QUINBUS FLESTRIN THE MAN MOUNTAIN, BY TITTY TIT, POET LAUREATE TO HIS MAJESTY OF LILLIPUT. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

This ‘Ode’ and the three following poems, were written by Pope after reading Gulliver’s Travels, and first published in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, in 1727.

In amaze

Lost I gaze!

Can our eyes

Reach thy size!

May my lays

Swell with praise,

Worthy thee!

Worthy me!

Muse, inspire

All thy fire!

Bards of old

Of him told,

When they said

Atlas’ head

Propp’d the skies:

See! and believe your eyes!

See him stride

Valleys wide,

Over woods,

Over floods!

When he treads,

Mountains’ heads

Groan and shake,

Armies quake;

Lest his spurn

Overturn

Man and steed:

Troops, take beed!

Left and right,

Speed your flight!

Lest an host

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Beneath his foot be lost;

Turn’d aside

From his hide

Safe from wound,

Darts rebound.

From his nose

Clouds he blows!

When he speaks,

Thunder breaks!

When he eats,

Famine threats!

When he drinks,

Neptune shrinks!

Nigh thy ear

In mid air,

On thy hand

Let me stand;

So shall I,

Lofty poet! touch the sky.

THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG

A PASTORAL

Soon as Glumdalclitch miss’d her pleasing care,

She wept, she blubber’d, and she tore her hair;

No British miss sincerer grief has known,

Her squirrel missing, or her sparrow flown.

She furl’d her sampler, and haul’d in her thread,

And stuck her needle into Grildrig’s bed;

Then spread her hands, and with a bonnce let fall

Her baby, like the giant in Guildhall.

In peals of thunder now she roars, and now

She gently whimpers like a lowing cow:1903: 10

Yet lovely in her sorrow still appears:

Her locks dishevell’d, and her flood of tears,

Seem like the lofty barn of some rich swain,

When from the thatch drips fast a shower of rain.

In vain she search’d each cranny of the house,

Each gaping chink, impervious to a mouse.

‘Was it for this (she cried) with daily care

Within thy reach I set the vinegar,

And fill’d the cruet with the acid tide,

While pepper-water worms thy bait supplied?1903: 20

Where twined the silver eel around thy hook,

And all the little monsters of the brook!

Sure in that lake he dropt; my Grilly’s drown’d!’

She dragg’d the cruet, but no Grildrig found.

‘Vain is thy courage, Grilly, vain thy boast!

But little creatures enterprise the most.

Trembling I’ ve seen thee dare the kitten’s paw,

Nay, mix with children, as they play’d at taw,

Nor fear the marbles as they bounding flew;

Marbles to them, but rolling rocks to you!1903: 30

‘Why did I trust thee with that giddy youth?

Who from a page can ever learn the truth?

Versed in court tricks, that money-loving boy

To some lord’s daughter sold the living toy;

Or rent him limb from limb in cruel play,

As children tear the wings of flies away.

From place to place o’er Brobdingnag I’ ll roam,

And never will return, or bring thee home.

But who hath eyes to trace the passing wind?

How then thy fairy footsteps can I find?1903: 40

Dost thou bewilder’d wander all alone

In the green thicket of a mossy stone;

Or, tumbled from the toadstool’s slipp’ry round,

Perhaps, all maim’d, lie grovelling on the ground

Dost thou, embosom’d in the lovely rose,

Or, sunk within the peach’s down repose?

Within the kingcup if thy limbs are spread,

Or in the golden cowslip’s velvet head,

O show me, Flora, midst those sweets, the flower

Where sleeps my Grildrig in the fragrant bower.1903: 50

‘But ah! I fear thy little fancy roves

On little females, and on little loves;

Thy pigmy children, and thy tiny spouse,

The baby playthings that adorn thy house,

Doors, windows, chimneys, and the spacious rooms,

Equal in size to cells of honeycombs.

Hast thou for these now ventured from the shore,

Thy bark a bean shell, and a straw thy oar?

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Or in thy box now bounding on the main,

Shall I ne’er bear thyself and house again?

And shall I set thee on my hand no more,1903: 61

To see thee leap the lines, and traverse o’er

My spacious palm; of stature scarce a span,

Mimic the actions of a real man?

No more behold thee turn my watch’s key,

As seamen at a capstan anchors weigh?

How wert thou wont to walk with cautious tread,

A dish of tea, like milkpail, on thy head!

How chase the mite that bore thy cheese away,

And keep the rolling maggot at a bay!’1903: 70

She spoke; but broken accents stopp’d her voice,

Soft as the speaking-trumpet’s mellow noise:

She sobb’d a storm, and wiped her flowing eyes,

Which seem’d like two broad suns in misty skies.

O squander not thy grief! those tears command

To weep upon our cod in Newfoundland;

The plenteous pickle shall preserve the fish,

And Europe taste thy sorrows in a dish.

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

Lemuel Gulliver

Gulliver, Lemuel

TO MR. LEMUEL GULLIVER THE GRATEFUL ADDRESS OF THE UNHAPPY HOUYHNHNMS NOW IN SLAVERY AND BONDAGE IN ENGLAND

To thee, we wretches of the Houyhnhnm band,

Condemn’d to labour in a barb’rous land,

Return our thanks. Accept our humble lays,

And let each grateful Houyhnhnms neigh thy praise.

O happy Yahoo, purged from human crimes,

By thy sweet sojourn in those virtuous climes,

Where reign our sires; there, to thy country’s shame,

Reason, you found, and Virtue were the same.

Their precepts razed the prejudice of youth,

And ev’n a Yahoo learn’d the love of Truth.1903: 10

Art thou the first who did the coast explore?

Did never Yahoo tread that ground before?

Yes, thousands! But in pity to their kind,

Or sway’d by envy, or thro’ pride of mind,

They hid their knowledge of a nobler race,

Which own’d, would all their sires and sons disgrace.

You, like the Samian, visit lands unknown,

And by their wiser morals mend your own.

Thus Orpheus travell’d to reform his kind,

Came back, and tamed the brutes he left behind.1903: 20

You went, you saw, you heard: with virtue fought,

Then spread those morals which the Houyhnhnms taught.

Our labours here must touch thy gen’rous heart,

To see us strain before the coach and cart;

Compell’d to run each knavish jockey’s heat!

Subservient to Newmarket’s annual cheat!

With what reluctance do we lawyers bear,

To fleece their country clients twice a year!

Or managed in your schools, for fops to ride,

How foam, how fret beneath a load of pride!1903: 30

Yes, we are slaves—but yet, by reason’s force,

Have learn’d to bear misfortune like a horse.

O would the stars, to ease my bonds ordain

That gentle Gulliver might guide my rein!

Safe would I bear him to his journey’s end,

For ’t is a pleasure to support a friend.

But if my life be doom’d to serve the bad,

Oh! mayst thou never want an easy pad!

Houyhnhnm

MARY GULLIVER TO CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER

AN EPISTLE

ARGUMENT

The captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr. Sympson’s in the country, Mrs. Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulatory, soothing, and tenderly complaining epistle.

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Welcome, thrice welcome to thy native place!

What, touch me not? what, shun a wife’s embrace?

Have I for this thy tedious absence borne,

And waked, and wish’d whole nights for thy return?

In five long years I took no second spouse;

What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows?

Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray;

Your nose you stop, your eyes you turn away.

’T is said, that thou shouldst ‘cleave unto thy wife;’

Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life.1903: 10

Hear, and relent! hark how thy children moan!

Be kind at least to these; they are thy own:

Behold, and count them all; secure to find

The honest number that you left behind.

See how they bat thee with their pretty paws:

Why start you? are they snakes? or have they claws?

Thy Christian seed, our mutual flesh and bone:

Be kind at least to these; they are thy own.

Biddel, like thee, might farthest India rove;

He changed his country, but retain’d his love.1903: 20

There’s Captain Pannel, absent half his life,

Comes back, and is the kinder to his wife;

Yet Pannel’s wife is brown compared to me,

And Mrs. Biddel sure is fifty-three.

Not touch me! never neighbour call’d me slut!

Was Flimnap’s dame more sweet in Lilliput?

I’ve no red hair to breathe an odious fume;

At least thy Consort’s cleaner than thy Groom.

Why then that dirty stable-boy thy care?

What mean those visits to the Sorrel Mare?1903: 30

Say, by what witchcraft, or what demon led,

Preferr’st thou litter to the marriage-bed?

Some say the Devil himself is in that mare:

If so, our Dean shall drive him forth by prayer.

Some think you mad, some think you are possess’d,

That Bedlam and clean straw will suit you best.

Vain means, alas, this frenzy to appease!

That straw, that straw would heighten the disease.

My bed (the scene of all our former joys,

Witness two lovely girls, two lovely boys)

Alone I press: in dreams I call my dear,1903: 41

I stretch my hand; no Gulliver is there!

I wake, I rise, and shiv’ring with the frost

Search all the house; my Gulliver is lost!

Forth in the street I rush with frantic cries;

The windows open, all the neighbours rise:

‘Where sleeps my Gulliver? O tell me where.’

The neighbours answer, ‘With the Sorrel Mare.’

At early morn I to the market haste

(Studious in every thing to please thy taste);1903: 50

A curious fowl and ’sparagus I chose

(For I remember’d you were fond of those);

Three shillings cost the first, the last seven groats;

Sullen you turn from both, and call for oats.

Others bring goods and treasure to their houses,

Something to deck their pretty babes and spouses:

My only token was a cup like horn,

That’s made of nothing but a lady’s corn.

’T is not for that I grieve; O, ’t is to see

The Groom and Sorrel Mare preferr’d to me!1903: 60

These, for some moments when you deign to quit,

And at due distance sweet discourse admit,

’T is all my pleasure thy past toil to know;

For pleas’d remembrance builds delight on woe.

At ev’ry danger pants thy consort’s breast,

And gaping infants squall to hear the rest.

How did I tremble, when by thousands bound,

I saw thee stretch’d on Lilliputian ground!

When scaling armies climb’d up every part,

Each step they trod I felt upon my heart.

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But when thy torrent quench’d the dreadful blaze,1903: 71

King, Queen, and Nation staring with amaze,

Full in my view how all my husband came;

And what extinguish’d theirs increas’d my flame.

Those spectacles, ordain’d thine eyes to save,

Were once my present; love that armour gave.

How did I mourn at Bolgolam’s decree!

For when he sign’d thy death, he sentenc’d me.

When folks might see thee all the country round

For sixpence, I’d have giv’n a thousand pound.1903: 80

Lord! when the giant babe that head of thine

Got in his mouth, my heart was up in mine!

When in the marrow bone I see thee ramm’d,

Or on the housetop by the monkey cramm’d,

The piteous images renew my pain,

And all thy dangers I weep o’er again.

But on the maiden’s nipple when you rid,

Pray Heav’n, ’t was all a wanton maiden did!

Glumdalclitch, too! with thee I mourn her case,

Heaven guard the gentle girl from all disgrace!1903: 90

O may the king that one neglect forgive,

And pardon her the fault by which I live!

Was there no other way to set him free?

My life, alas! I fear prov’d death to thee.

O teach me, dear, new words to speak my flame;

Teach me to woo thee by thy best lov’d name!

Whether the style of Grildrig please thee most,

So call’d on Brobdingnag’s stupendous coast,

When on the monarch’s ample hand you sate,1903: 99

And halloo’d in his ear intrigues of state;

Or Quinbus Flestrin more endearment brings,

When like a mountain you look’d down on kings:

If ducal Nardac, Lilliputian peer,

Or Glumglum’s humbler title soothe thy ear:

Nay, would kind Jove my organs so dispose,

To hymn harmonious Houyhnhnm thro’ the nose,

I’d call thee Houyhnhnm, that high sounding name

Thy children’s noses all should twang the same;

So might I find my loving spouse of course

Endued with all the virtues of a horse.1903: 110

LATER POEMS

ON CERTAIN LADIES

When other fair ones to the shades go down,

Still Chloë, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:

Those ghosts of beauty wand’ring here reside,

And haunt the places where their honour died.

CELIA

Celia, we know, is sixty-five,

Yet Celia’s face is seventeen;

Thus winter in her breast must live,

While summer in her face is seen.

How cruel Celia’s fate, who hence

Our heart’s devotion cannot try;

Too pretty for our reverence,

Too ancient for our gallantry!

PROLOGUE TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS’S BENEFIT, IN 1733, WHEN HE WAS OLD, BLIND, AND IN GREAT DISTRESS, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS DEATH

As when that hero, who in each campaign

Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,

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Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe,

Wept by each friend, forgiv’n by ev’ry foe;

Was there a gen’rous, a reflecting mind,

But pitied Belisarius old and blind?

Was there a chief but melted at the sight?

A common soldier but who clubb’d his mite?

Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,

When, press’d by want and weakness, Dennis lies;

Dennis! who long had warr’d with modern Huns,

Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns;

A desp’rate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce,

Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse.

How changed from him who made the boxes groan,

And shook the stage with thunders all his own!

Stood up to dash each vain pretender’s hope,

Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the Pope!

If there’s a Briton, then, true bred and born,

Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;

If there’s a critic of distinguish’d rage;

If there’s a senior who contemns this age;

Let him to-night his just assistance lend,

And be the Critic’s, Briton’s, old man’s friend.

SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733

The public astonished Pope by taking this burlesque seriously, and praising it as poetry.

I

Flutt’ring spread thy purple Pinions,

Gentle Cupid, o’er my Heart;

I a Slave in thy Dominions;

Nature must give Way to Art.

II

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,

Nightly nodding o’er your Flocks,

See my weary Days consuming,

All beneath you flow’ry Rocks.

III

Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,

Mourn’d Adonis, darling Youth:

Him the Boar in Silence creeping,

Gored with unrelenting Tooth.

IV

Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers;

Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;

Soothe my ever-waking Slumbers:

Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.

V

Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,

Arm’d in adamantine Chains,

Lead me to the Crystal Mirrors,

Wat’ring soft Elysian Plains.

VI

Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow,

Gilding my Aurelia’s Brows,

Morpheus hov’ring o’er my Pillow,

Hear me pay my dying Vows.

VII

Melancholy smooth Mœander,

Swiftly purling in a Round,

On thy Margin Lovers wander,

With thy flow’ry Chaplets crown’d.

VIII

Thus when Philomela drooping,

Softly seeks her silent Mate,

See the Bird of Juno stooping;

Melody resigns to Fate.

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, THE CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER, SLEPT IN AT ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, JULY 9TH, 1739

With no poetic ardour fired

I press the bed where Wilmot lay;

That here he lov’d, or here expired,

Begets no numbers grave or gay.

Beneath thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie

Stretch’d out in honour’s nobler bed,

Beneath a nobler roof—the sky.

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Such flames as high in patriots burn,

Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;

And such as wicked kings may mourn,

When Freedom is more dear than Life.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM COMPOSED OF MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS

These lines were enclosed in a letter to Bolingbroke, dated September 3, 1740.

Thou who shalt stop where Thames’ translucent wave

Shines a broad mirror thro’ the shadowy cave;

Where ling’ring drops from min’ral roofs distil,

And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill;

Unpolish’d gems no ray on pride bestow,

And latent metals innocently glow;

Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!

And eye the mine without a wish for gold.

Approach; but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,

Where, nobly pensive, St. John sate and thought;

Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,

And the bright flame was shot thro’ Marchmont’s soul.

Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,

Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS

Lady Frances Shirley was daughter of Earl Ferrers, a neighbor of Pope’s at Twickenham.

Yes, I beheld th’ Athenian Queen

Descend in all her sober charms;

‘And take’ (she said, and smiled serene),

‘Take at this hand celestial arms:

‘Secure the radiant weapons wield;

This golden lance shall guard Desert,

And if a Vice dares keep the field,

This steel shall stab it to the heart.’

Awed, on my bended knees I fell,

Received the weapons of the sky;1903: 10

And dipt them in the sable well,

The fount of Fame or Infamy.

‘What well? what weapons?’ (Flavia cries,)

‘A standish, steel and golden pen!

It came from Bertrand’s, not the skies;

I gave it you to write again.

‘But, Friend, take heed whom you attack;

You ’ll bring a House (I mean of Peers)

Red, blue, and green, nay white and black,

L[ambeth] and all about your ears.

‘You ’d write as smooth again on glass,

And run, on ivory, so glib,

As not to stick at Fool or Ass,

Nor stop at Flattery or Fib.

‘Athenian Queen! and sober charms!

I tell ye, fool, there ’s nothing in ’t:

’T is Venus, Venus gives these arms;

In Dryden’s Virgil see the print.

‘Come, if you ’ll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies,

I ’ll lift you in the harmless roll

Of those that sing of these poor eyes.’

ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK

The Lord Treasurer Middlesex’s house at Chelsea, after passing to the Duke of Beaufort, was called Beaufort House. It was afterwards sold to Sir Hans Sloane. When the house was taken down in 1740, its gateway, built by Inigo Jones, was given by Sir Hans Sloane to the Earl of Burlington, who removed it with the greatest care to his garden at Chiswick, where it may be still seen. (Ward.)

I was brought from Chelsea last year,

Batter’d with wind and weather;

Inigo Jones put me together;

Sir Hans Sloane let me alone;

Burlington brought me hither.

Edition: current; Page: [128]

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

1742

Thomas Southern

Southern, Thomas

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742

Southern was invited to dine on his birthday with Lord Orrery, who had prepared the entertainment, of which the bill of fare is here set down.

Resign’d to live, prepared to die,

With not one sin but poetry,

This day Tom’s fair account has run

(Without a blot) to eighty-one.

Kind Boyle before his poet lays

A table with a cloth of bays;

And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,

Presents her harp still to his fingers.

The feast, his tow’ring Genius marks

In yonder wildgoose and the larks!

The mushrooms show his Wit was sudden!

And for his Judgment, lo, a pudden!

Roast beef, tho’ old, proclaims him stout,

And grace, although a bard, devout.

May Tom, whom Heav’n sent down to raise

The price of Prologues and of Plays,

Be ev’ry birthday more a winner,

Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner,

Walk to his grave without reproach,

And scorn a Rascal and a Coach.

EPIGRAM

My Lord complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,

Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings.

‘But he’s my neighbour,’ cries the Peer polite:

‘And if he visit me, I’ll waive the right.’

What! on compulsion, and against my will,

A lord’s acquaintance? Let him file his bill!

EPIGRAM

Explained by Carruthers to refer to the large sums of money given in charity on account of the severity of the weather about the year 1740.

‘I shall here,’ says Dr. Warton, ‘present the reader with a valuable literary curiosity, a Fragment of an unpublished Satire of Pope, entitled, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty; communicated to me by the kindness of the learned and worthy Dr. Wilson, formerly fellow and librarian of Trinity College, Dublin; who speaks of the Fragment in the following terms:—

‘ “This poem I transcribed from a rough draft in Pope’s own hand. He left many blanks for fear of the Argus eye of those who, if they cannot find, can fabricate treason; yet, spite of his precaution, it fell into the hands of his enemies. To the hieroglyphics there are direct allusions, I think, in some of the notes on the Dunciad. It was lent me by a grandson of Lord Chetwynd, an intimate friend of the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who gratified his curiosity by a boxful of the rubbish and sweepings of Pope’s study, whose executor he was, in conjunction with Lord Marchmont.” ’

O wretched B[ritain], jealous now of all,

What God, what Mortal shall prevent thy fall?

Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,

And see what succour from the patriot race.

C[ampbell], his own proud dupe, thinks Monarchs things

Made just for him, as other fools for Kings;

Controls, decides, insults thee ev’ry hour,

And antedates the hatred due to power.

Thro’ clouds of passion P[ulteney]’s views are clear;

He foams a Patriot to subside a Peer;1903: 10

Impatient sees his country bought and sold,

And damns the market where he takes no gold.

Grave, righteous S[andys] jogs on till, past belief,

He finds himself companion with a thief.

To purge and let thee blood with fire and sword

Is all the help stern S[hippen] would afford.

Edition: current; Page: [129]

That those who bind and rob thee would not kill,

Good C[ornbury] hopes, and candidly sits still.

Of Ch[arle]s W[illiams] who speaks at all?1903: 19

No more than of Sir Har[r]y or Sir P[aul]:

Whose names once up, they thought it was not wrong

To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long.

G[owe]r, C[obha]m, B[athurs]t, pay thee due regards.

Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards.

with wit that must

And C[hesterfiel]d who speaks so well and writes,

Whom (saving W.) every S[harper bites,]

must needs

Whose wit and . . . equally provoke one,

Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on.

As for the rest, each winter up they run,

And all are clear, that something must be done.1903: 30

Then urged by C[artere]t, or by C[artere]t stopp’d,

Inflamed by P[ultene]y, and by P[ultene]y dropp’d;

They follow rev’rently each wondrous wight,

Amazed that one can read, that one can write

(So geese to gander prone obedience keep,

Hiss if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep);

Till having done whate’er was fit or fine,

Utter’d a speech, and ask’d their friends to dine,

Each hurries back to his paternal ground,

Content but for five shillings in the pound,1903: 40

Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give,

And all agree Sir Robert cannot live.

Rise, rise, great W[alpole], fated to appear,

Spite of thyself a glorious minister!

Speak the loud language princes . . .

And treat with half the . . .

At length to B[ritain] kind, as to thy . . .

Espouse the nation, you . . .

What can thy H[orace] . . .

Dress in Dutch . . .1903: 50

Though still he travels on no bad pretence,

To show . . .

Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue,

Veracious W[innington] and frontless Yonge;

Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there

So late a foe, yet more sagacious H[are]?

Hervey and Hervey’s school, F[ox], H[enle]y, H[into]n,

Yea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton.

How! what can O[nslo]w, what can D[elaware],

The wisdom of the one and other chair,1903: 60

N[ewcastle] laugh, or D[orset]’s sager [sneer],

Or thy dread truncheon M[arlboro]’s mighty Peer?

What help from J[ekyl]l’s opiates canst thou draw

Or H[ardwic]k’s quibbles voted into law?

C[ummins], that Roman in his nose alone,

Who hears all causes, B[ritain], but thy own,

Or those proud fools whom nature, rank, and fate

Made fit companions for the sword of state.

Can the light Packhorse, or the heavy Steer,1903: 69

The sowzing Prelate, or the sweating Peer,

Drag out with all its dirt and all its weight,

The lumb’ring carriage of thy broken state?

Alas! the people curse, the carman swears,

The drivers quarrel, and the master stares.

The plague is on thee, Britain, and who tries

To save thee, in th’ infectious office dies.

The first firm P[ultene]y soon resign’d his breath,

Brave S[carboro] loved thee, and was lied to death.

Good M[arch]m[on]t’s fate tore P[olwar]th from thy side,

And thy last sigh was heard when W[yndha]m died.1903: 80

Thy nobles sl[ave]s, thy se[nate]s bought with gold,

Thy clergy perjured, thy whole people sold,

An atheist dqtrmoon, a circledplus″′s ad. . . . . . . . .

Blotch thee all o’er, and sink. . . . . .

Alas! on one alone our all relies,

Let him be honest, and he must be wise.

Let him no trifler from his school,

Nor like his. . . . . . . . . still a. . . .

Edition: current; Page: [130]

Be but a man! unminister’d, alone,

And free at once the Senate and the Throne;1903: 90

Esteem the public love his best supply,

A circleface’s true glory his integrity;

Rich with his. . . . . . in his. . . . . strong,

Affect no conquest, but endure no wrong.

Whatever his religion or his blood,

His public Virtue makes his title good.

Europe’s just balance and our own may stand,

And one man’s honesty redeem the land.

POEMS OF UNCERTAIN DATE

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

Erinna

Erinna

TO ERINNA

Tho’ sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,

A softer wonder my pleas’d soul surveys,

The mild Erinna, blushing in her bays.

So, while the sun’s broad beam yet strikes the sight,

All mild appears the moon’s more sober light;

Serene, in virgin majesty she shines,

And, unobserv’d, the glaring sun declines.

LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST

Sent in an undated letter to Martha Blount.

All hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade,

Scene of my youthful loves, and happier hours!

Where the kind Muses met me as I stray’d,

And gently press’d my hand, and said, ‘Be ours.’

Take all thou e’er shalt have, a constant Muse:

At Court thou mayst be liked, but nothing gain:

Stocks thou mayst buy and sell, but always lose;

And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU FIRST PUBLISHED BY WARBURTON IN 1751

Un jour, dit un auteur, etc.

Once (says an author, where I need not say)

Two travellers found an Oyster in their way:

Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong,

While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass’d along.

Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,

Explain’d the matter, and would win the cause.

Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful right,

Takes, opens, swallows it before their sight.

The cause of strife remov’d so rarely well,

‘There take (says Justice), take ye each a shell.

We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:

’T was a fat Oyster—Live in peace—Adieu.’

LINES ON SWIFT’S ANCESTORS

Swift set up a plain monument to his grandfather, and also presented a cup to the church of Goodrich, or Gotheridge (in Herefordshire). He sent a pencilled elevation of the monument (a simple tablet) to Mrs. Howard, who returned it with the following lines, inscribed on the drawing by Pope. The paper is endorsed, in Swift’s hand: ‘Model of a monument for my grandfather, with Pope’s roguery.’ (Scott’s Life of Swift.)

Jonathan Swift

Had the gift,

By fatherige, motherige,

And by brotherige

To come from Gotherige,

But now is spoil’d clean,

And an Irish dean;

In this church he has put

A stone of two foot,

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With a cup and a can, sir,

In respect to his grandsire;

So, Ireland, change thy tone,

And cry, O hone! O hone!

For England hath its own.

ON SEEING THE LADIES AT CRUX EASTON WALK IN THE WOODS BY THE GROTTO EXTEMPORE BY MR. POPE

Authors the world and their dull brains have traced

To fix the ground where Paradise was placed;

Mind not their learned whims and idle talk;

Here, here ’s the place where these bright angels walk.

INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO, THE WORK OF NINE LADIES

Here, shunning idleness at once and praise,

This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;

The glitt’ring emblem of each spotless dame,

Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;

Beauty which Nature only can impart,

And such a polish as disgraces Art;

But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,

And hid in deserts what would charm a Court.

Alexander Pope

Pope, Alexander

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF OXFORD UPON A PIECE OF NEWS IN MIST [MIST’S JOURNAL] THAT THE REV. MR. W. REFUSED TO WRITE AGAINST MR. POPE BECAUSE HIS BEST PATRON HAD A FRIENDSHIP FOR THE SAID POPE

Wesley, if Wesley ’t is they mean,

They say on Pope would fall,

Would his best Patron let his Pen

Discharge his inward gall.

What Patron this, a doubt must be,

Which none but you can clear,

Or father Francis, ’cross the sea,

Or else Earl Edward here.

That both were good must be confess’d,

And much to both he owes;

But which to him will be the best

The Lord of Oxford knows.

EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS

ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE DRAWN BY LADY BURLINGTON

It is not known who the Bishop was. The ‘lying Dean’ refers to Dr. Alured Clarke, who preached a fulsome sermon upon the Queen’s death.

Peace, flatt’ring Bishop! lying Dean!

This portrait only paints the Queen!

EPIGRAM ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

‘His Highness’ was Frederick, Prince of Wales.

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?

LINES WRITTEN IN EVELYN’S BOOK ON COINS

First printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735.

Tom Wood of Chiswick, deep divine,

To Painter Kent gave all this coin.

’T is the first coin, I ’m bold to say,

That ever churchman gave to lay.

FROM THE GRUB-STREET JOURNAL

This Journal was established in January, 1730, and carried on for eight years by Pope Edition: current; Page: [132] and his friends, in answer to the attacks provoked by the Dunciad. It corresponds in some measure to the Xenien of Goethe and Schiller. Only such pieces are here inserted as bear Pope’s distinguishing signature A.; several others are probably his. (Ward.)

I: EPIGRAM

Occasioned by seeing some sheets of Dr. Bentley’s edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Did Milton’s prose, O Charles, thy death defend?

A furious Foe unconscious proves a Friend.

On Milton’s verse does Bentley comment?—Know

A weak officious Friend becomes a Foe.

While he but sought his Author’s fame to further,

The murd’rous critic has avenged thy murder.

II: EPIGRAM

Should D[enni]s print, how once you robb’d your brother,

Traduced your monarch, and debauch’d your mother;

Say, what revenge on D[enni]s can be had;

Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad?

Of one so poor you cannot take the law;

On one so old your sword you scorn to draw.

Uncaged then let the harmless monster rage,

Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age.

III: MR. J. M. S[MYTH]E CATECHISED ON HIS ONE EPISTLE TO MR. POPE

What makes you write at this odd rate?

Why, Sir, it is to imitate.

What makes you steal and trifle so?

Why, ’t is to do as others do.

But there ’s no meaning to be seen.

Why, that ’s the very thing I mean.

IV: EPIGRAM ON MR. M[OO]RE’S GOING TO LAW WITH MR. GILIVER: INSCRIBED TO ATTORNEY TIBBALD

Once in his life M[oo]re judges right:

His sword and pen not worth a straw,

An author that could never write,

A gentleman that dares not fight,

Has but one way to tease—by law.

This suit, dear Tibbald, kindly hatch;

Thus thou may’st help the sneaking elf;

And sure a printer is his match,

Who ’s but a publisher himself.

V: EPIGRAM

A gold watch found on cinder whore,

Or a good verse on J[emm]y M[oor]e,

Proves but what either should conceal,

Not that they’re rich, but that they steal.

VI: EPITAPH ON JAMES MOORE-SMYTHE

Here lies what had nor birth, nor shape, nor fame;

No gentleman! no man! no-thing! no name!

For Jamie ne’er grew James; and what they call

More, shrunk to Smith—and Smith ’s no name at all.

Yet die thou can’st not, phantom, oddly fated:

For how can no-thing be annihilated?

VII: A QUESTION BY ANONYMOUS

Tell, if you can, which did the worse,

Caligula or Gr[afto]n’s Gr[a]ce?

That made a Consul of a horse,

And this a Laureate of an ass.

Edition: current; Page: [133]

VIII: EPIGRAM

The sting of this epigram was for Cibber, then Poet Laureate.

Great G[eorge] such servants since thou well canst lack,

Oh! save the salary, and drink the sack.

IX: EPIGRAM

Behold! ambitious of the British bays,

Cibber and Duck contend in rival lays,

But, gentle Colley, should thy verse prevail,

Thou hast no fence, alas! against his flail:

Therefore thy claim resign, allow his right:

For Duck can thresh, you know, as well as write.

EPITAPHS

His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!

Virg. [Æn. vii. 885.]

ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM, SUSSEX

Dorset, the Grace of Courts, the Muses’ Pride,

Patron of Arts, and Judge of Nature, died.

The scourge of Pride, tho’ sanctified or great,

Of Fops in Learning, and of Knaves in State:

Yet soft his Nature, tho’ severe his Lay,

His Anger moral, and his Wisdom gay.

Bless’d Satirist! who touch’d the mean so true,

As show’d, Vice had his hate and pity too.

Bless’d Courtier! who could King and Country please,

Yet sacred keep his Friendships and his Ease.

Bless’d Peer! his great Forefathers’ ev’ry grace

Reflecting, and reflected in his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,

And Patriots still, or Poets, deck the line.

ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO KING WILLIAM III

Who, having resigned his Place, died in his retirement at Easthamsted, in Berkshire, 1716.

IN FOUR EPISTLES TO LORD BOLINGBROKE

The first two epistles of the Essay on Man were written in 1732, the third in the year following, and the fourth in 1734, when the complete Essay was published as we have it.

THE DESIGN

Having proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as, to use my Lord Bacon’s expression, ‘come home to men’s business and bosoms,’ I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his nature and his state: since to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind, as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last; and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible and in forming a temperate, yet not inconsistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics.

This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts, so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but it is true: I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning. If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connexion, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow; consequently these epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage: to deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.

EPISTLE I OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE

ARGUMENT

Of Man in the abstract. I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, verse 17, etc. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, verse 35, etc. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, verse 77, etc. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of Man’s error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensations, verse 113, etc. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world which is not in the natural, verse 131, etc. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while, on the one hand, he demands the perfections of Edition: current; Page: [138] the angels, and, on the other, the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, verse 173, etc. VII. That throughout the whole visible world a universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of Sense, Instinct, Thought, Reflection, Reason: that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, verse 207, etc. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, verse 213, etc. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, verse 209, etc. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, verse 281, etc., to the end.

EPISTLE II OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL

ARGUMENT

I. The business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature; his powers and frailties, verses 1 to 19. The Edition: current; Page: [142] limits of his capacity, verse 19, etc. II. The two principles of Man, Self-love and Reason, both necessary. Self-love the stronger, and why. Their end the same, verse 81, etc. III. The Passions, and their use. The predominant passion, and its force. Its necessity, in directing men to different purposes. Its providential use, in fixing our principle, and ascertaining our virtue, verse 93, etc. IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: what is the office of Reason, verse 203, etc. V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, verse 217, etc. VI. That, however, the ends of Providence, and general goods, are answered in our passions and imperfections. How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men: how useful they are to Society; and to individuals; in every state, and every age of life, verse 238, etc., to the end.